Against the Loveless World (2020)-Susan Abulhawa
Whoever you are, you need to read this book.
Content Warnings: Rape, violence, death, colonialism/occupation, warfare, imprisonment, torture, forced prostitution
Representation: Palestinian, Arab, Muslim
Favorite Quote: “This is what it means to be exiled and disinherited—to straddle closed borders, never whole anywhere. To remain in one place meant tearing one’s limbs from another.”
Named after the James Baldwin quote, “Here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world,” the novel Against the Loveless World embodies Baldwin’s words to his nephew and tells how love can become the only thing to fortify those under the oppression of others.
Spanning multiple decades and three countries, this novel follows Nahr, the daughter of Palestinian refugees. Born in Kuwait, Nahr’s main concern is providing for her family, by any means at her disposal, even if it puts her in compromising and dangerous positions. Her plans of being her family’s savior, however, are uprooted by Sadeem Husain’s invasion of Kuwait and the displacement of Palestinian Kuwaitis that follows. From there, Nahr is torn between her identities that stretch across borders and pushed out of each place she finds comfort.
From the beginning, readers are made aware that Nahr tells this story of her movement between Kuwait, Jordan, and Palestine from the confinement of an Israeli prison cell. It is only then, as the novel unfolds, that readers begin to understand how she went from a beautician in Kuwait to an imprisoned Palestinian revolutionary. This is done through a linear chronology that shifts to a more recent history of Nahr’s imprisonment at the start of each of the seven sections.
As a character, Nahr is headstrong and described by the author as a “feminist who never heard of the word feminism.” She herself, as well as many of the characters around her, are deeply human and flawed and develop beautifully throughout the novel. Motivated by newly developed attachments to her roots in Palestine, Nahr revolutionizes her worldview and pushes the boundaries of those who grow to love her.
Everything aboutAgainst the Loveless Worldis compelling and unabashedly radical in its message. It denounces oppression and occupation by means of showing the realities of those who are occupied or displaced by colonialism, all told through the perspective of a brilliantly written character who comes to understand yet another James Baldwin quote mentioned in this story, “to act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.”