Susan Abulhawa was born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, and moved to the United States as a teenager. In 2001, she founded Playgrounds for Palestine, Inc., to build playgrounds for children in occupied territories. A biologist, mother, and activist, Susan has contributed essays to the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, and Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications. Mornings in Jenin, her first novel, was published in a hardcover edition by Journey Publications in 2006 under the title The Scar of David, but fell out of print. It will now be widely available for the first time, in a fully revised edition. Her Web site is www.scarofdavid.com.
Palestine, 1948. A mother clutches her six-month-old son as Israeli soldiers march through the village of Ein Hod. In a split second, her son is snatched from her arms and the fate of the Abulheja family is changed forever. Forced into a refugee camp in Jenin and exiled from the ancient village that is their lifeblood, the family struggles to rebuild their world. Their stories unfold through the eyes of the youngest sibling, Amal, the daughter born in the camp who will eventually find herself alone in the United States; the eldest son who loses everything in the struggle for freedom; the stolen son who grows up as an Israeli, becoming an enemy soldier to his own brother. Mornings in Jenin is a devastating novel of love and loss, war and oppression, and heartbreak and hope, spanning five countries and four generations of one of the most intractable conflicts of our lifetime.
