Let It Be Morning
By Sayed Kashua
4/5
()
About this ebook
A young Arab journalist returns to his hometown—an Arab village in Israel’s borderland near the West Bank. There, his conflicted sense of belonging is forced into crisis when the village becomes a pawn in the endless power struggle that is the Middle East. Hoping to reclaim the simplicity of life among his kin, the prodigal son returns home to find that nothing is as he remembers: everything is smaller, the people are petty and provincial. But when Israeli tanks surround the village without warning or explanation, everyone inside is cut off from the outside world. As the situation grows increasingly dire, paranoia takes hold and the village community devolves into chaos.
In Let It Be Morning, Arab Israeli author Sayed Kashua once again “relates the experience of those caught in the middle, the Arab-Israelis who are citizens but are separated from many of their countrymen by faith and heritage” (School Library Journal).
“Kashua . . . writes about the Israeli Arabs’ balancing act with knowledge and passion.” —Publishers Weekly
Sayed Kashua
Sayed Kashua was born in 1975 in Galilee and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He writes a weekly column for Ha'aretz, Israel's most prestigiousnewspaper, and lives with his wife and two children in Beit-Safafa, an Arab village within Jerusalem. His first novel, Dancing Arabs, was a San Francisco Book of the Year and was translated into eight languages. Let it be Morning (Atlantic, 2007) has been longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award
Read more from Sayed Kashua
Second Person Singular: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dancing Arabs Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Track Changes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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Reviews for Let It Be Morning
31 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a slow burner, but well worth sticking with. At the start it appeared to be about an Arab, living in Israel, who exudes dissatisfaction about everything - his career, his home village, the city where he used to live, his parents, his wife....the list goes on.As the story progressed, I found it increasingly informative. I like a book that challenges my ignorance - and for starters I didn't realise there were Arabs who counted themselves Israeli citizens, and were happy to remain so. This book is all about such people, and what happens when a village is surrounded by tanks and effectively cut off from civilization by its own government, without explanation.The results of this action go beyond cultural considerations, and there were scenes, increasingly shocking in nature, that reminded me of one of my fave novels 'The Grapes of Wrath'. By the closing chapters I was on the edge of my seat. Beware, incidentally, of reading the 'Sewage' section on a full stomach. There is a scene in there that would make James Herriot's Sunday teatime forays into the nether regions of a pregnant cow look like very small beer.All in all I have finished this book feeling a great deal better informed about affairs in the Middle East than I was when I first picked it up. As someone who believes the West can learn an awful lot from moderate Islam, I found it fascinating to learn about normal everyday life in the village, where there were wars but generally 'over parking spaces', and where the first concern among many people when the power was cut off was that they would miss the next episode of their favourite Egyptian soap opera. The story's conclusion, though abrupt, provided further food for thought.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A young journalist, his wife, and baby daughter leave their rented apartment in an Israeli city and move to the Arab village in which the couple grew up. Feeling not that much a part of the Jewish establishment in which he works anymore, this journalist thinks that returning to what was once familiar will be comforting. The sad realization overtakes him that he is not returning to the same place he left 10 years earlier.It’s not so much that the writing is good, but it’s the fact that the words the author chooses so acutely and accurately convey his feelings--the most pervasive one being the burden of feeling at ease any place at all in Israel, be it in a Jewish or Arab environment. How odd that I should have chosen this book to read precisely during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon again in 2006. I really feel for the Israeli Arabs who seek a home in which they can feel comfortable and secure at all times.This book takes a a further and more painful step into the uncomfortable world between Jew and Arab. In Dancing Arabs, the author tread lightly on this precarious relationship. In Let it be Morning, Kashua heads from the psychological problems to the threat of physical harm as well. Where can the line be drawn into comfortably fitting Arabs into the life of the Jewish state? That’s the issue this difficult, but engrossing read is trying to express.The story left me breathless. The tension was unbelievable as the author drove deeply into me what it must feel like to be in the limbo of the Arab Israeli world. I greatly look forward to reading more work by this amazingly talented writer.