The Hair of the Pigeon - by Mohammed Massoud Morsi (Paperback)

About the Book

"The Hair of the Pigeon, based on a true story, tells the heartbreaking love story of two young Palestinians, Ghassan and Sama, who grow up together in Yarmouk, Syria, fall in love as teens, have their lives upended by the Arab Spring and the civil war-and are eventually reunited as refugees in Denmark"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A story of exile, memory, and first love, brutal, unforgettable. For readers of Khaled Hosseini, Noor Naga, and Marjane Satrapi, The Hair of the Pigeon is a bold portrait of coming of age in a broken world--and the hope of making it whole.

"She killed him. Later that night, she kissed me." So begins this haunting, lyrical tale that unfolds in the labyrinthine alleys of Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, where concrete cages hold generations of longing, defiance, and love.

During the tumultuous years of the Arab Spring, Ghassan is seventeen, caught between the boy he was and the man war demands him to become. In the camp, nothing is stable--except his devotion to Sama, the brilliant, pigeon-racing girl with sapphire eyes and an untamable spirit. But loving Sama means navigating rivalries, secrets, and violence in a world where trust is fragile and power is in dangerous hands.

Told with aching intimacy and poetic force, The Hair of the Pigeon traces the friendship of two boys, the impossible love of a girl who refuses to be caged, and the quiet endurance of a people denied a homeland. From rooftop football to the shadowy corners of war, this novel pierces the heart with its truth: that love, like flight, is often born from struggle--and that home is more than a place on a map.

The long-haired pigeon is the bringer of change. The creature that exists in the void between dreams and reality. It carries with it the stories of what truly was and what could have been and what still is. The rise and fall of lives in the face of war, their displacement near and far. The story of the refugee is complicated and at the heart of it is a story about us all.

Review Quotes

"Set in the beleaguered heart of the Yarmouk refugee camp, this is a profound and unsparing novel about a love forged in fire, shattered by betrayal, and exiled across continents. The Hair of the Pigeon charts the abject valleys and the dizzying peaks of Ghassan, Sama, and Badawi's lives, reminding us of the terrifying beauty of human existence, and that after all else burns away, hope endures like iron ingots in the ashes. This story is utterly necessary for these times."
--Arif Anwar, author of The Storm

About the Author

Mohammed Massoud Morsi is an Egyptian-Danish-Australian photographer, journalist and writer. His work has been published in all three of his traditional languages. Morsi discovered journalism made people yesterday's news and turned to writing novels instead. He has a talent for reaching to the heart of existence in a complex world and looks to important questions, finding that which is quintessentially human within much broader struggles. His work is enriched by his photographer's eye for detail and a passion for speaking out for those suppressed, challenging and breaking common narratives all at once.