Passage to the Plaza - (Arab List) by Sahar Khalifeh (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In Bab Al-Saha, a quarter of Nablus, Palestine, sits a house of ill repute. In it lives Nuzha, a young woman ostracized from and shamed by her community. When the Intifada breaks out, Nuzha's abode unexpectedly becomes a sanctuary for those in the quarter: Hussam, an injured resistance fighter; Samar, a university researcher exploring the impact of the Intifada on women's lives; and Sitt Zakia, the pious midwife.

In the furnace of conflict at the heart of the 1987 Intifada, notions of freedom, love, respectability, nationhood, the rights of women, and Palestinian identity--both among the reluctant residents of the house and the inhabitants of the quarter at large--will be melted and re-forged. Vividly recounted through the eyes of its female protagonists, Passage to the Plaza is a groundbreaking story that shatters the myth of a uniform gendered experience of conflict.

Review Quotes

"But what makes Passage to the Plaza stand apart from the rest of Khalifeh's novels, in addition to showcasing some of her strongest writing, is the timing of the Arabic book's release, published at the height of the Intifada."-- "Middle East Eye"

"In [Khalifeh's] novels, the striving for women's emancipation from patriarchal domination runs in parallel with the desire for Palestinian freedom."-- "On the Seawall"

"No Palestinian writer has subjected Palestinian society to as radical a political and social critique as Khalifeh has done since she began writing in the early 1970s."--Bashir Abu-Manneh, author of The Palestinian Novel: From 1948 to the Present

About the Author

Sahar Khalifeh was born in Nablus in 1941 and is one of the most prominent Palestinian writers of our time. She is the author of eleven novels, all of which deal with the situation of the Palestinians under occupation. Sawad Hussain is a translator living in Cambridge.