Palestinian Women’s resilience in the face of occupation

Book Review: The Blue between the sky and water — Susan Abulhawa

"They uprooted indigenous songs, and planted lies in the ground to grow a new story"

As with other Abulhawa books, The blue between sky and water is a story of several generations of one Palestinian family, the Baraka family and its matriarch Hajje Nazmiyeh, which takes us through thier journeys of life pre nakba, the devastation that was the nakba and the subsequent scattering of family members, including Nur, who finds herself separated from her family in Gaza and in America.

A story revolving around its female characters, this book brought to the forefront the immeasurable strength, resilience, love and warmth of these women, who in the face of destruction and humiliation, hold their families together and who refuse to let occupiers destroy them or deny them their joy.

Lately, I find myself thinking of this book often in light of the genocide in Gaza, and the hell that had been unleashed on the women of Gaza. May the women of Palestine find nothing but joy.