The Scar of David

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 352 pages
• Published by: Journey Publications December 11, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0977207889
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0977207886
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.3 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
Abulhawa's first novel is an earnest but heavy-handed depiction of the 20th century through Palestinian eyes. The book opens in the Arab village of Ein Hod, outside Jerusalem, as a farmer named Yehya witnesses the destruction of his home in the war following Israel's founding in 1948. The book then follows Yehya's granddaughter, Amal, from her youth in a refugee camp to America (strange but full of opportunity), then her reunion with her family in Lebanon. There she falls in love with a doctor named Majid and becomes pregnant, but returns to America as many of her loved ones become enmeshed in the brutal Lebanese civil war of the 1980s and the Israeli occupation. With the Oslo peace accords, Amal finally returns to the country of her birth, but finds that the situation there remains tense and violent. While Amal's story is undeniably tragic, Abulhawa surrounds her with paper-thin characters, Arab and Jewish alike. The Palestinians want "only to live on their land as they always had," while the Israelis are murderers and baby-snatchers who use the Holocaust to justify their actions. Equal parts clumsy history lesson and melodrama, this book does little to shed light on one of the world's most complex conflicts. (Sept.)
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Product Review
Every now and again a literary work changes the way people think. Abulhawa, 2003 winner of the Edna Andrade Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Award, has crafted a brilliant first novel about Palestine. The book opens in the 1940s, in the small village of Ein Hod, before the forced relocation of residents to the Jenin refugee camp. Once in the settlement, a young girl named Amal Abulhawa becomes the story-s focus. Through Amal-s eyes, readers see the daily routines of generations of refugees and glimpse the indignities imposed on Palestinians by the Israeli army; they-ll also see people fall in love, have babies, and develop an appreciation for poetry and scholarship. While some readers might see this novel as anti-Semitic, it is not. Indeed, Abulhawa goes to great lengths to highlight the universal desire of all people for a homeland. Furthermore, Abulhawa-s compassion for American victims of 9/11 and for those who suffered in the Holocaust illuminates what it means to be humane and spiritually generous. The Pennsylvania-based Abulhawa, herself Palestinian, has crafted an intensely gorgeous fictionalized history that should be read by both politicians and those interested in contemporary politics. Highly recommended. --Library Journal, June 1, 2006

Reader Reviews
I met Susan, the author, quite by chance this weekend at a bookstore where she was signing the book. I bought a signed copy from her, took it home and read almost all of it in one sitting. Susan has done something very difficult and admirable, namely to write a literary narrative of the Palestinian Diaspora through the eyes of a family which experienced it. Like the protagonists, my parents also became refugees after 1948 and this is the first novel about the Palestinian exile which has really grabbed me and made me want to share the book with everyone I know. It is well written and will stand the test of time. Although one professional reviewer feels that the book is not even-handed in its depiction of the Jewish characters, the plain fact is that, in the story of the Palestinian Diaspora, there were relatively few Israelis whose actions were worthy of praise. One might as well expect a story about the tragic history of American Indians (Native Americans) to sing the praises of the white men at whose hands they suffered so much. Reading this book allows the reader to understand the passion which Arabs and Palestinians have over Palestine, and Jerusalem, and appreciate why there never will be peace until there is a just and honorable settlement for the Palestinians, including some form of compensation for their losses. This is a very topical, timely and effective story. Comment | | (Report this)