On the Hills of God describes the year-long journey of a boy becoming a man, while all that he has known crumbles to ashes. The novel has been translated into German and Arabic and won the PEN Oakland Award for literary excellence. Critic Ishmael Reed calls it “a monumental book.” This revised edition includes a new introduction. When we first encounter Palestinian Yousif Safi in June 1947, he is filled with hopes for his education abroad to study law, and with daydreams of his first love, the...
In this sequel to Ibrahim Fawal's critically acclaimed On the Hills of God (winner of the PEN Oakland Award), the young Palestinian Yousif Safi searches throughout Jordan for Salwa, his bride, from whom he was separated during their forced exodus after the catastrophe (Nakba) of 1948. Amidst the squalor of refugee camps, and beside himself with anxiety for Salwa, Yousif joins his countrymen in trying to exist while waiting to be restored to their homeland. Why, they ask, did this tragedy...
