Abulhawa, Susan 1957-

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Abulhawa, Susan 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957; immigrated to the United States. Education: University of South Carolina, graduate school.

ADDRESSES:

Home—PA. Office—Playgrounds for Palestine, P.O. Box 559, Yardley, PA 19067. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, activist, and scientist. Founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, c. 2001.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Edna Andrade Award, 2003.

WRITINGS:

The Scar of David (novel), Journey Publications (Summerland, CA), 2006.

Also author of the blog Advogato. Contributor to the anthologies Shattered Illusions, Amal Press, 2002; and Searching Jenin, Cune Press, 2003. Contributor of essays to periodicals, including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, and Philadelphia Inquirer.

SIDELIGHTS:

In her first novel, The Scar of David, Susan Abulhawa borrows from her own and her family's background as refugees from the Six- Day War of 1967 to tell the story of four generations of a Palestinian family and of the many indignities that the Palestinians suffer at the hands of the Israeli Army. Much of the book, which Eleanor J. Bader called a "timely, fact-based novel" in the Indypendent, focuses on Amal, who spends part of her youth in a refugee camp and then immigrates to America. As noted by Bader: "Throughout, Amal is the linchpin. With her, we mourn the death of her clinically depressed mother and rail at the disappearance of her father during an Israeli raid." Years later, when Amal returns to visit family in Lebanon, she falls in love with a Lebanese doctor and becomes pregnant. However, she returns to America during the Lebanese civil war of the 1980s only to once again discover that the unrest and violence has not really abated.

Bader, writing this time in the Library Journal, called The Scar of David "an intensely beautiful fictionalized history that should be read by both politicians and those interested in contemporary politics." Referring to the novel as "a profoundly beautiful story," CounterPunch Web site contributor Ron Jacobs also wrote: "The sheer ability of this story to tear emotions from the reader is what the US reader must experience. If they are to know the results of their indifference and their admonitions that oh, it can't be that bad, they must read this book."