The Book Corner

Upon receiving this note from her uncle, Zayna – born to an American
mother and a Palestinian father - decided it was time she packed up and
left her job and life in Washington to head back to Wadi Al Rihan, the
home she had longed to see, the family affection she had lost since
childhood, and the connection to the roots she had searched for in vain.

Sahar Khalife's 1997 novel, "The Inheritance" is
a powerful and intense story, rich with its layers and its deeply human
characters. It probes through social and cultural complexities, through
the hopes and ambitions revived by Oslo, the quest for identity, and the
weaknesses and limitations of the Palestinian Authority at the time

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The new English translation by Aida Bamia – Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Florida - (University of Cairo Press, 2006)
flows smoothly and attempts to retain as much of the original character
and idioms as possible, the Arabic version remains richer, especially
with Khalifeh's abundant use of colloquial expressions, and her
distinctly long sentences embedded with sarcasm all through. This is
probably what makes the original more emotionally charged and
psychologically demanding of the reader.

Whichever you go for, this novel is a superb read.

Through Zayna's journey back to the homeland, and her narration, Sahar
Khalifeh takes us into the complex realities of Palestinians' lives in
the wake of the 1990 gulf war and the Oslo accords. The main
protagonists in this novel are Palestinian women; Nahleh, the sister who
spent the golden years of her life working as teacher in Kuwait and
supporting her father and brothers before being forced to leave and
coming back to the harsh reality of being an old maiden with an
ungrateful and judgmental family; Violet, the intelligent and beautiful
hairdresser stuck in her love for a defeated revolutionary, a veteran of
Beirut and the resistance, who was good for nothing but talk about
nationalism and lost dreams; Amira, the pious mother living on the
remnants of a respectable and acclaimed family.

Sahar Khalifeh was born in the West Bank city of Nablus in 1941 and is
the author of six novels. A former Fulbright scholar, she holds a B.A.
from Bir Zeit University, and a Ph.D. in women’s studies and American
literature from the University of Iowa. She began writing shortly after
the 1967 Israeli invasion of Gaza and the West Bank, and published her
first novel in 1974. She is the most translated Palestinian author after
Mahmoud Darwish.