Wild Thorns

“When you ask Palestinians, ‘Who should I read?’ Sahar Khalifeh is one of the writers they often recommend…Wild Thorns is set in the West Bank, in Nablus, which has been recently occupied. It’s about a man, Usama, who has come back to Palestine from working in the Gulf. He finds that following the conquest of the West Bank, no one is resisting. Lots of his family have got jobs in Israel, and they’re in this period of stasis. He’s very upset about it, and tells them that they need to resist. In his fervour, Usama joins a militant movement, who plan to blow up busses of Palestinians going to work in Israel” Read more...

The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels

Raphael Cormack, Literary Scholar