The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa

The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa

It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a quiet village in Palestine surrounded by olive groves, is home to the Baraka family. Eldest daughter Nazmiyeh looks after her widowed mother, prone to wandering and strange outbursts, while her brother, Mamdouh, tends to the village bees. Their younger sister, Mariam, with her striking mismatched eyes, spends her days talking to imaginary friends and writing.

When Israeli forces gather outside the town's borders, nobody suspects the terror that is about to descend. Soon the village is burning, and, amid smoke and ash, the family must take the long road to Gaza, in a walk that will test them to their limits.

Sixty years later Mamdouh's granddaughter, Nur, is living in America. She falls in love with a married man, a doctor who works in Palestine, and follows him to Gaza. There she meets Alwan, the mother of Khaled--a boy trapped in his own body, unable to wake up from a deep blue dream. It is through her that Nur will at last discover the ties of kinship that transcend distance--and even death.

The Blue Between Sky and Water is a story of powerful, flawed women; of relocation, separation, and heartache; of renewal, family, endurance, and love. Susan Abulhawa brings a raw humanity and delicate authority to the story of Palestine in this devastatingly beautiful tale.

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian-American writer based in Pennsylvania. Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury 2010) and The Blue Between Sky and Sea (Bloomsbury 2015) are two of her critically acclaimed novels. Abulhawa started Playgrounds for Palestine, an organisation that develops safe spaces for children in the occupied territories and UN refugee camps, in 2001. Her political opinion has featured in multiple outlets across the United States and worldwide.