A Loveless World

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa. Reviewed by Micki Luckey. 

In her beautiful but emotionally challenging novel, Against the Loveless World, Susan Abulhawa captures the insecurity and lack of place experienced by Palestinians in the diaspora and then the building of community and resistance to the occupation inside Palestine. With exquisite descriptions of place, food, events, and people, we follow Yaqoot (also called Nahr) as she moves from Kuwait to Jordan to Palestine. ​

A panoramic view of the Ramallah hills. Photo by Fjmustak, 2016, Creative Commons

The violence in her daily life from her teenage marriage (that doesn’t turn out as she dreamed) followed by her life as a dancer and prostitute makes this book emotionally challenging to read. Yaqoot hardens her heart to survive her treatment by men in general and her rapists in particular. And yet she continues to care deeply for her family, fondly remembering the times at the seashore with her few friends in Kuwait. In addition to the violence against women, the violence of the state is depicted through arrests and torture of dear ones as well as by Yaqoot’s own painful solitary confinement.

The beauty of the book lies in its intricate, intimate descriptions —descriptions of the way people care for each other, both in her family and her adopted family in Palestine, descriptions of the countryside that transport the reader to the hill of olive and almond trees where they watched the shepherd and then the sunset, and descriptions of meals, with the appreciation of cooking and being cooked for. Before her first dinner with her adopted family, Nahr responds, “Bless both of your hands that made this delicious meal. You humble me with your kindness.” There is even beauty in the relations between comrades who form a tightly-knit cadre in Palestine, and, throughout, in her enjoyment of dance and music that enables her to sing in the face of oppression.

I was struck by how Yaqoot experiences freedom for the first time during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. She only realizes how limited the options of Palestinian non-citizens in Kuwait were and how poorly they were treated when the Iraqis accepted Palestinians as fellow Arabs. During this short period, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had openly backed Saddam Hussein. As a result, when the Americans came in to restore the Kuwaiti government, all Palestinians living in Kuwait were treated as collaborators, including Yaqoot’s brother, who was arrested and badly tortured. Yaqoot, her mother and grandmother have to wait for his release before they can join their neighbors fleeing to Amman.

Yaqoot has difficulty finding her place in Amman. She says, “Everywhere I turned in Amman there was a reminder of loss.” It is here, however, that she recognizes her mother’s work in traditional embroidery as “a masterful testament to our heritage and her own artistry.” When her brother does the paperwork for their return to Palestine, she hesitates to go. Once there, she writes to her friend in Amman that life in Palestine is more than the scenes of occupation, the endless war zone shown in the news. “They don’t show our weddings, cafes, nightlife, shopping, art and music scenes, universities, landscape, farming, harvests. It’s not what I imagined. At the same time, it is everything I imagined.”

Yaqoot’s grandmother suffers the pain of twice being expelled from Palestine and then again from Kuwait. Her mother also suffers, although she speaks little of it. When Yaqoot manages to visit Haifa and finds her family home, a stately stone building with the trees her grandfather planted (one for each child and grandchild), she realizes that her mother too must have entered the garden and like her, been chased away.
With all the trauma in her life and the rage she carries, Nahr refuses to be a victim. She stands up for herself again and again. As a newcomer in Palestine, she is told, “The way you live your life in our culture, without apology or shame, even if with sadness, makes you extraordinary and special, Nahr. You, more than any of us, are a revolutionary and the irony is that you don’t even see it.” She joins their cadre and contributes to their opposition of the encroaching (illegal) settlement. She participates in the Third Intifada that breaks out all over the West Bank (an event imagined by the author, writing before 2020). 

Nahr learns about other revolutions as her friend reads to her. The title Against the Loveless World is derived from James Baldwin, who wrote in a letter to his nephew, “You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger,” and also, “Here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard at once and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world.” Hearing these words, Nahr realizes, “There were others in the world who, like us [Palestinians], were seen as worthless, not expected to aspire or excel, for whom mediocrity was predestined and who should expect to be told where to go, what to do, whom to marry and where to live.” The conflicts and injustices that Nahr endures remind us of the struggles of Blacks in the U.S. The story highlights the importance of love in their struggles. 

Fierce in spite of fear, strong while acknowledging shame, and loved in the midst of hate, Nahr fights for freedom in every way she can. Informed that she is viewed by her people as a revolutionary, an Israeli general tries to insult her by calling her “a revolutionary whore.” Intended as a slur, it feels like a tribute to Nahr’s struggles against a loveless world and her achievements as a courageous Arab woman.

Against the Loveless World is a vital read for anyone who seeks to understand the complexity of human trauma and resilience for many in the Palestinian community.
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Susan Abulhawa is also the author of Mornings in Jenin, a multi-generational story about Palestinian family displaced in 1948 to the refugee camp in Jenin.