Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian American writer and political activist whose latest novel, AGAINST THE LOVELESS WORLD, is a remarkable story filled with lyrical prose and breathtaking humanity.

The book follows Nahr, a Palestinian refugee, as she recounts her story from an Israeli prison writing on scraps of paper entirely in code. She begins her journey as a young girl living in Kuwait in the 1970s with her brother, mother and grandmother. While Nahr is tough and fiery, she looks forward to marriage and running her own business as she gets older. She goes on to marry a revered freedom fighter recently released from prison. He soon abandons her, though, leaving her with nothing but disillusionment.

"Abulhawa beautifully creates spaces for her characters to experience love, whether through family, friendship or marriage in what feels like a loveless world at times."

Struggling to put back the pieces of her life in her husband’s absence, Nahr strikes an unlikely friendship with an older Kuwaiti woman, Um Baraq. In Um Baraq’s circle, Nahr is thrown into a means of making money that greatly helps her family in the trenches of poverty. However, these means stray far from their traditional values. At a great personal cost, Nahr supports her loved ones as a sex worker suffering at the hands of unkind men.

With the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Nahr and her family are displaced from another home and settle in Jordan. After several years, they urge her to finally divorce her husband. Nahr is able to travel to Palestine to file the paperwork due to the Oslo Accords and renewal of her documents. Her life unfolds on a new path once she meets Bilal, her soon-to-be ex-husband’s brother. Praised as a war hero and deep into a resistance movement, Bilal exposes Nahr to a life of resistance and love.

Abulhawa references the work of James Baldwin in her writing and in the book's title. During several months of curfew set by Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, Nahr and Bilal read the writings of Baldwin and relate to his work. They reflect on his words about being seen as worthless by others and wonder if love is the reason they have survived such pain. Abulhawa beautifully creates spaces for her characters to experience love, whether through family, friendship or marriage in what feels like a loveless world at times.

AGAINST THE LOVELESS WORLD is about the persistent human spirit and the borders that seek to divide us. As Nahr’s story unfolds, readers get to see every side of her multi-dimensional character; she is smart, funny, caring and unrelenting in her fight against a loveless world. Abulhawa marks an exceptional tone of voice through Nahr that will have every reader rooting for her and other girls just like her.