“It wasn’t until they had finished their dinner, and began sipping on their meramieh tea, that something shifted in the air. An unmistakable sense of foreboding hung thick in the spaces between them, and settled itself in the room like an uninvited guest who kept returning. Pride and joy gave way to an irrational but real fear of loss. That was how this family had become. That is what life had shaped them into. Happiness was always a reminder of grief; pride a reminder of disappointment; and joy always brought his evil cousin, foreboding.”
Sabawi has blended fact and fiction here to create a history that reads more like a novel, with her father and his family at the center. The focus is not on the looming dispossession, but rather on his passion for his neighbour, and love of poetry. Of course, this just makes the loss hit far harder, as we feel what leaving Gaza meant then, just as Gaza faces an impossibly difficult future.