ASAD'S SECRET

Seventeen-year-old Asad feels trapped by a life of poverty and disillusionment in Gaza.

As he walks from the two-room home with its tin roof that he shares in the refugee camp with his mother and seven siblings, past the prison where his father is being held, Asad feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. When he’s not in school, he helps support his family by working at a printing press, but his future seems clouded by despair. At Um Fawzi’s neighborhood store, Asad finds comfort in her frank speech and wise words. The older lady in turn trusts him with her deepest secrets. He also shares an unspoken bond with a beautiful girl named Houriya, which grows through the books they exchange. Um Fawzi steers Asad toward channeling his simmering resentments into securing a scholarship abroad. Later, as he leaves Gaza, he reflects on Um Fawzi’s eerily prescient words: “the specters of those who lived in Gaza…remain in Gaza.” Set in 2011–2012, and recently translated from Arabic, this compelling novel by Attaallah, a Palestinian author from Gaza, provides glimpses into daily life. Asad’s frustrations and crushing, claustrophobic environment are balanced by Um Fawzi’s and Houriya’s hope and love. Gaza itself is a living, breathing character. Its quiet libraries, music concerts, eager students, tall residential towers, and parks full of laughing children, cheek by jowl with refugee camps, feel like haunting echoes of a once vibrant and resilient city.

A quietly devastating book about clashing hopes and realities.