Mornings in Jenin: A Novel

Summary

“A major writer of our time.” —Alice Walker

The 20th anniversary edition of one of the biggest contributions to anglophone Palestinian literature, with over a million copies sold worldwide, featuring a new introduction from Maaza Mengiste.

Mornings in Jenin tells the unforgettable story of Amal, one of three Palestinian siblings, born in the Jenin refugee camp to parents displaced from their ancestral village in 1948 by the newly formed Jewish state.

Amal grows up in the shadow of a family and community shattered by loss—of home, country, heritage. Her brother Ismael, is stolen as an infant and raised as an Israeli soldier named David. Her older, beloved brother Yousef is transformed from professor to prisoner to fighter. Through war, occupation, and exile, over the course of six decades, three continents, and four generations, Amal emerges as the family's heart—a girl who was read poetry by her father read poetry at dawn, a woman who finds love only to lose it in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and a mother raising her daughter Sara alone in America while carrying the weight of a homeland she can not reclaim.

When her brother David finally appears, searching for his origins, the three siblings' fractured lives converge in a powerful reckoning with identity, belonging, and the brutal price of a colonial injustice that has defined them all.