A Long Walk from Gaza by Asmaa Alatawna, Michelle Hartman, Caline Nasrallah

The violence of life in Gaza which has taken on immense proportions for the whole world to see is intimately rendered here in a human story of resistance and resilience. In the tradition of Palestinian women writers, Asmaa Alatawna has gifted us a novel that is both personal and political, that exposes both the occupation and the patriarchy. A Long Walk from Gaza is a coming-of-age story that follows its teenage protagonist through her battles with a strict and abusive father, the exhilaration of her first crush, confrontations with occupation soldiers, and the heartbreak of leaving her home Gaza for a new life in Europe. Beginning in Europe and working backward to her own birth and early childhood, Alatawna’s creative narration mirrors the traumas of her life and her people. A Long Walk from Gaza not only exposes the harshness of both male authority and the stifling of the dreams of girls in parallel with the devastating conditions Palestinians endure under a brutal Israeli occupation