Book club talk with Susan Abulhawa: Mornings in Jenin (Author Event #2)

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian woman who moved to the United States and has lived there for the majority of her adult life. She initially studied medicine and then moved onto becoming a political activist. She first began by writing letters to the editor and discovering her writing skills through this. After a trip to the town Jenin in Palestine where a massacre had just occurred, she came back to the United States and decided that she would write about what was going on at the moment in the town. At the time, she was then retrenched from her work and was left stranded with no income and a daughter to care for on her own. Abulhawa goes on to mention that she didn’t care for anything and continued to write. The book Mornings in Jenin initially stemmed from writing with the intention of it being a political essay. She continued to write and knew she had to make it into a novel. She mortgaged her house and lived with debt for two years, but never gave up on her dream. Finding a publisher was a whole other struggle in itself. Her first publisher was in France, then Italy, then Barcelona and eventually to the publishing company Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. Susan mentioned that when her book was initially published, there was no marketing whatsoever; it didn’t even have a single review. The growth of the book was purely by word of mouth. She then goes onto continuing her point that a book doesn’t become itself until it is in the hands of the reader. Her readers made her book into the success that it is today.

During the zoom call, we spoke of everything and anything. Topics ranging from life, immigrants, death, culture, family, politics and the book itself were discussed. Below are a few factors that I had picked up, and thought to share them with you.

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian woman who moved to the United States and has lived there for majority of her adult life. She initially studied medicine and then moved onto becoming a political activist. She first began by writing letters to the editor and discovering her writing skills through this. After a trip to the town Jenin in Palestine where a massacre had just occurred, she came back to the United States and decided that she would write about what was going on at the moment in the town. At the time, she was then retrenched from her work and was left stranded with no income and a daughter to care for on her own. Abulhawa goes on to mention that she didn’t care for anything and continued to write. The book Mornings in Jenin initially stemmed from writing with the intention of it being a political essay. She continued to write and knew she had to make it into a novel. She mortgaged her house and lived with debt for two years, but never gave up on her dream. Finding a publisher was a whole other struggle in itself. Her first publisher was in France, then Italy, then Barcelona and eventually to the publishing company Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. Susan mentioned that when her book was initially published, there was no marketing whatsoever; it didn’t even have a single review. The growth of the book was purely by word of mouth. She then goes onto continuing her point that a book doesn’t become itself until it is in the hands of the reader. Her readers made her book into the success that it is today.

A question was asked on whether Susan Abulhawa believes that fiction can be as provocative as non-fiction. She agrees with this statement and mentions that sometimes fiction stories have a power that textbooks and the like don’t. Creating characters creates a connection with the reader that can be more powerful in persuading the reader, rather than a non-fiction book. Her books, which are historical fiction, are basically fictional characters in a real historic setting. This idea makes what we read all the more realistic and persuasive. There were two readers on the call as well, who mentioned that they had read the book a second time in the city of Nablus, Palestine. They described what they had read as real, as if the fiction in the book had turned into life, because as they looked out their window, they saw the events of the story occurring before their eyes.

Susan Abulhawa mentions that she and her character Amal (from Mornings in Jenin) are very much different; that she found herself being frustrated with the character at times. However, she does mention that on occasion, she finds that she sometimes knowingly as well as unconsciously included experiences of her life in her book. She mentions that the orphanage that Amal had lived in when she was younger, was an event that had occurred in her life. Amal had then lived in Philadelphia for her adult life, which is a city that Abulhawa is familiar with. This topic stemmed from the topic of immigrants and the places they call home. Susan was brutally honest in this topic, and I found my respect for her growing even more. She mentioned that she will always be an outsider in the USA, despite living there for years. Her culture, customs, and language are too different to call it her home. Whereas Palestine is no longer her home either. The majority of her family members are no longer there, and she is seen as an outsider due to the fact that she has lived in the United States for many years. She mentions that her character Amal faces the same struggle, as she was in the same situation. However, towards the end, she calls another character, Majid, her ‘home’.

I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and loved the fact that I was able to hear the different perspectives that the other readers had. My love for Susan Abulhawa’s work has grown tremendously, and I look forward to reading more of her books. Oh, did you know that she is a poet as well?!