It is a thicker, richer, more cynical and at he same time more imaginative book than Kashua’s previous effort, which was already accomplished to start… A complicated study of betrayal… He spikes his novel with strong, pungent anecdotes and observations. Let It Be Morning is as much about humiliation, disappointment, fear, hope and fleeting moments of euphoric possibility as it is about Middle East politics… At times uproariously funny, at others wrenchingly poignant, Let It Be Morning is a queasy read, very much by design and very much worth the discomfort.”–Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Daily Star
“A haunting and highly-disturbing narrative… What makes the story flow as beautifully as the soft welcoming sounds of running water is its skilled structure and deep probing reflections…[You feel an] empathy that tugs and tears at the heartstrings. This story cannot be faulted. In its underlying description of truth where pain was pictured as real and raw, I found no shortcomings. None at all.”—Suzan Abrams, Café Arabica
“An intimate, eye-opening portrait of the conflicted allegiances of the Israeli Arabs, proving once again that Sayed Kashua is a fearless, prophetic observer of a political and human quagmire that offers no easy answers.”—Pacific UniversityBook Club
“Let It Be Morning offers a riveting study of human values collapsing under inhuman conditions, with unsuitable messiahs, or ‘heroes of resistance’, rising in the vacuum… Reminiscent of Orwell and Kafka along with Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.”—Maya Jaggi, The Guardian (UK)
“Sharp, powerful, and uncompromising… One of the most potent and impressive novels written in Hebrew in the last several years.”—Ha’aretz (Israel)
Praise for Dancing Arabs:
“Books like this one, that tell the stories of war through the eyes of children, are the textbooks for future generations. They carry the cultural information, those memes that are missing from conventional, nonfiction accounts.”—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
“A bracingly candid lamentation… [that] stares unflinchingly at the many ugly realities on both sides of an eternal national crisis.”—The Sun (Baltimore)
Kashua's second novel (after Dancing Arabs) illuminates the lives of Israel's Arab minority. An unnamed Israeli Arab journalist returns from Tel Aviv to his home village with his wife and infant daughter, in search of cheaper living. There, residents flip anxiously between Hebrew news and al-Jazeera to make sense of daily life, and high school students wear both the latest Western clothes and veils in increasing numbers. The journalist's cosmopolitan wife hates their parochial hometown, and when the protagonist finds himself eased out of his position at a prominent Jewish newspaper (surmising that "the privilege of criticizing government policy was an exclusively Jewish prerogative"), he has to hide his unemployment from her. Then one morning, the journalist finds that the Israelis have cordoned the town, cutting off all communication with the outside world. The town is plagued by infighting, mutual suspicion and rekindled feuds, revealing fault lines in the Arab community. Kashua is a journalist for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, and he writes about the Israeli Arabs' balancing act with knowledge and passion. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
The protagonist of Kashua's second novel (after Dancing Arabs) is a young Arab-Israeli journalist who moves back to his native village from Tel Aviv to escape increasing marginalization but finds life in the village to be provincial and suffocating. When the Israeli army surrounds the village, closing it off, villagers are unable to go to their jobs or schools, and no goods or services can get in. As the garbage piles up and drinking water becomes scarce, no explanation for the action is forthcoming. This extreme situation is unremarkable to most of the villagers, but the journalist flies into a panic and correctly prepares for the worst. In the end, the reasons behind the military blockade shock even the most complacent villager. Kashua explores what it means to be an outsider-as an Arab in Israel, as an Israeli Arab among Palestinian Arabs, and, as we learn through the journalist's memories of childhood, as an outsider among peers. Kashua also depicts a community's ability to adapt to uncertain circumstances, responding to crises both nobly and shamefully. Shlesinger's smooth translation presents Kashua's skilled and humane story in vibrant, compelling prose. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.-Rebecca Stuhr, Grinnell Coll. Libs., IA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Adult/High School-A young Arab-Israeli journalist moves from Tel Aviv back to his childhood village with his wife and baby daughter just in time to be caught up in a series of harrowing, dramatic events. In response to Israel's military presence in the village, neighbors and relatives find themselves fighting one another in order to survive. The first-person narrative gives this novel the sort of immediacy often found in YA fiction; although the narrator is nearly 30, the short chapters and fast pace, combined with the memories of youth that his return home elicits, make for an easy fit for older teens with an interest in other cultures or current events. Some words or concepts are not explicitly defined, but are made clear in context. A real strength here is the unusual perspective; the novel relates the experience of those caught in the middle, the Arab-Israelis who are citizens but are separated from many of their countrymen by faith and heritage. The unspoken answer to the unnamed protagonist's query about his own village: "Who are they anyhow?" is hinted at in the unsettling conclusion. A natural choice for teens who have discovered Albert Camus' The Stranger.-Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
This valuable and convincing second novel by Arab-Israeli journalist Kashua (Dancing Arabs, 2004) captures how the Middle East conflict affects a young man of similar background to the novelist's own. The story concerns an Arab-Israeli journalist, who, stung by the discrimination of his Jewish neighbors and colleagues, moves back to the small Arab town where he and his wife were born. Because his editor is increasingly mistrustful of Arabs and indifferent to their point of view, the hero has practically no work, which he experiences as shameful and conceals from his family. Thus the move home feels like a step backward, or worse, since the town has declined in safety and civility: Gang-bangers with Uzis shake down local storekeepers, and Arabs with Israeli citizenship exploit illegal Palestinian day workers. The most ominous change is in how the town is categorized by Jewish Israelis. Without warning, tanks suddenly seal off the village. Phone service, electrical power, water and sewer lines are shut down. This cataclysmic break with normalcy has no explanation. Like characters in Kafka, the locals try to puzzle out a reason for the hardships they are subjected to. When a contractor on his way to work in a Jewish settlement approaches a barricade to talk his way through, his truck is blown up by mortar fire. Later, he will be described on Israeli television as a terrorist. The narrator's father, a village elder, trusts his Jewish compatriots; younger men riot. Without food or water in the parching heat, plagued by the stench of sewage and uncollected garbage, the villagers wait helplessly, none knowing why their rights and services have been withdrawn. But as brutal and irrational eventsunfold, they must still find a way to live and work. An accessible and remarkably fair-minded book of particular importance in its immediate relevance.
