Against the loveless world by Susan Abulhawa

A political art. A book that picks unputdownable momentum. A page-turner that you will inhale and not read. It's a beautiful, poignant novel of palestine struggle. Nahr, the lead character, is a daughter of migration. She is a Palestinian who has never been to Palestine and the beginning of the story shows her to be based in Kuwait and in love with everything about Kuwait. From being a family girl to marrying a war hero (only to be abandoned by him), she ceded into the aegis of Um Buraq who eases Nahr into a new wold of high-end prostitution. Initially apalled by the demands of the new job, she gets engulfed into the promises that came with the power of her earnings. All that money empowerd Nahr to get her brother into a medical school and lift her family from destitution after her father's demise. Amid brewing political turmoil and Saddam's invasion, her family flees to Jordan. Nahr loses her purpose and struggles with the day to day monotony in Jordan before her circumstances force her to a short trip to Palestine. She ends up finding herself - her unending quest throughout her different struggles and phases of life. As the story unfolds, Nahr is captured and sentenced to solitary confinement in an israeli prison where she spends her days replaying the best and worst parts of her life so far, dreaming of the love she found in and for Palestine. Just when she finally had a sense of belongingness and a man and a home to call her own, her whole world came to a screeching halt. Why is it a must read? The plot never loses its grip on the horrid plight of Palestinian refugee, LGBTQ+ suppression, sex workers and resistance workers It's a beautiful, and often haunting, tale of life, love, friendship and betrayal that often has glimpses of hope and small wins. It is not a narrative of simplicity - the book offers complicated and intertwined elements of comings and goings, of burials and birthdays, of arrivals and exoduses - a stunning tale buzzing ith life (and loss). In a deeply polarized wolrd that we inhabit, writers like Susan Abulhawa become those transnational storytellers that weave a world of shared pain and empathy with their craft. She has created a masterpiece, a treasure trove of emotions that range an imperceptible spectrum. It is difficult to say when the book transcends the boundaries of being a 'story' and becomes a breathing testament of human quirk and contradictions!