2020 Palestine Book Awards Winner
2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist
&;Susan Abulhawa possesses the heart of a warrior; she looks into the darkest crevices of lives, conflicts, horrendous injustices, and dares to shine light that can illuminate hidden worlds for us.&; &;Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize&;winning author
In this &;beautiful...urgent&; novel (The New York Times), Nahr, a young Palestinian woman, fights for a better life for her family as she travels as a refugee throughout the Middle East.
As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she&;s forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation. Nahr&;s subversive humor and moral ambiguity will resonate with fans of My Sister, The Serial Killer, and her dark, contemporary struggle places her as the perfect sister to Carmen Maria Machado&;s Her Body and Other Parties.
Written with Susan Abulhawa&;s distinctive &;richly detailed, beautiful, and resonant&; (Publishers Weekly) prose, this powerful novel presents a searing, darkly funny, and wholly unique portrait of a Palestinian woman who refuses to be a victim.
Industry Reviews
"Against the Loveless World gives readers a lens that focuses on the experience of a woman trying to assimilate into Palestinian culture as she moves forward to find a better life, the one she always dreamed of."-- "Apartment Therapy"
"From the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which made her a refugee, to jilted love, poverty, prostitution, a trek through Jordan, and falling in love, Nahr's life unfolds in twists and turns, told beautifully by the internationally bestselling author of Mornings in Jenin."-- "GMA.com"
"Against the Loveless World is a masterpiece! As she does with every book, Susan Abulhawa paints stunningly beautiful and humanizing images of Palestinian women as they navigate the violence of settler-colonial oppression with dignity and agency. With this novel, she also forces us to wrestle with the complexities of love, freedom, struggle, and shame in ways that both inspire and challenge our very conceptions of what it means to be human. This is a major literary contribution that further cements Abulhawa's status as one of the most important writers of our generation."--Marc Lamont Hill, award-winning author of Nobody
