Against the Loveless World

2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist 

“Susan Abulhawa possesses the heart of a warrior; she looks into the darkest crevices of lives, conflicts, horrendous injustices, & dares to shine light that can illuminate hidden worlds for us.” —Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author 

In this “beautiful...urgent” novel (New York Times), Nahr, a young Palestinian woman, fights for a better life for her family as she travels as a refugee throughout the Middle East. As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. 

Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, & possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, & the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, & her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation. 

Nahr’s subversive humor & moral ambiguity will resonate with fans of My Sister, The Serial Killer, & her dark, contemporary struggle places her as the perfect sister to Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body & Other Parties. 

Written with Susan Abulhawa’s distinctive “richly detailed, beautiful, & resonant” (Publishers Weekly) prose, this powerful novel presents a searing, darkly funny, & wholly unique portrait of a Palestinian woman who refuses to be a victim.

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SUSAN ABULHAWA is a Palestinian American writer & political activist. She is the author of Mornings in Jenin & The Blue Between Sky & Water. Born to refugees of the Six-Day War of 1967, she moved to the US as a teenager.