My Account Log in

1 option

The book of disappearance : a novel / Ibtisam Azem ; translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon.

Van Pelt Library PJ7914.Z35 S54 2019
Loading location information...

Available This item is available for access.

Log in to request item
Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
ʻĀzim, Ibtisām, 1974- author.
Contributor:
Antoon, Sinan, 1967- translator.
Series:
Middle East literature in translation
Middle East Literature In Translation
Standardized Title:
Sifr al-ikhtifa'. English
Language:
Arabic
English
Subjects (All):
Palestinian Arabs--Israel--Fiction.
Palestinian Arabs.
Missing persons--Fiction.
Missing persons.
Israel.
Survival--Fiction.
Survival.
Israel--Fiction.
Genre:
Fiction.
Psychological fiction.
Physical Description:
242 pages ; 21 cm.
Edition:
First edition.
Place of Publication:
Syracuse, New York : Syracuse University Press, 2019.
Summary:
"What if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day? What would happen next? How would Israelis react? These unsettling questions are posed in Azem's powerfully imaginative novel. Set in contemporary Tel Aviv forty eight hours after Israelis discover all their Palestinian neighbors have vanished, the story unfolds through alternating narrators, Alaa, a young Palestinian man who converses with his dead grandmother in the journal he left behind when he disappeared, and his Jewish neighbor, Ariel, a journalist struggling to understand the traumatic event. Through these perspectives, the novel stages a confrontation between two memories. Ariel is a liberal Zionist who is critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but nevertheless believes in Israel's project and its national myth. Alaa is haunted by his grandmother's memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel's search for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance and his reaction to it intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. The Book of Disappearance grapples with both the memory of loss and the loss of memory for the Palestinians. Presenting a narrative that is often marginalized, Antoon's translation of the critically acclaimed Arabic novel invites English readers into the complex lives of Palestinians living in Israel."--Provided by publisher.
Notes:
"Originally published in Arabic as Sifr al-Ikhtifa' (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2014)"--Title page verso.
Other Format:
Online version: ʻĀzim, Ibtisām, 1974- author. Book of disappearance
ISBN:
9780815611110
0815611110
OCLC:
1078885113

The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.

Find

Home Release notes

My Account

Shelf Request an item Bookmarks Fines and fees Settings

Guides

Using the Find catalog Using Articles+ Using your account