The Scar of David

Mornings in Jenin is a multi-generational story about a Palestinian family. Forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejas are displaced to live in canvas tents in the Jenin refugee camp. We follow the Abulheja family as they live through a half century of dispossession. Amidst loss, fear, and pain, as their tents are replaced by more forebodingly permanent cinderblock huts, there is always the waiting to return to a lost home.The novel’s voice is that of Amal, the granddaughter of the village patriarch, a bright, sensitive girl who makes it out of the camps, only to return years later, where she marries and bear a child. Through her eyes, with her evolving vision, we get...