Arundhati Roy was the first Indian writer whose work I loved: Susan Abulhawa

It’s been over 60 years since the invasion of Palestine and, to put it in another way, the founding of the state of Israel. For many, it may seem ages, but for author Susan Abulhawa it’s an incident that will forever remain etched in her memory and haunt her. Now, the vivid description of the events of 1948 in her new novel Mornings In Jenin, only reiterates the fact that the issue and the human dimensions of the tragedy has had a profound effect on her mind.

She says, “The earlier iterations of the book, i.e. the first couple of drafts, were mostly autobiographical and the book’s protagonist was me. But as the characters began to fill out, they took a life of their own and began to tell their own stories. In the finished product, only one chapter is autobiographical. It’s called The Orphanage and it chronicles my life in the Jerusalem orphanage, where I lived for almost three years in the early 1980s.”
Susan received a lot of ‘positive’ feedback for the book. However, some readers also found it to be ‘anti-Semitic’ (hostile towards or prejudice against Jews or Judaism). She says, “No one writing from a Jewish point of view, for example, would have ever been criticised for writing a ‘one-sided’ story about life under German occupation; or a black South African writing a ‘one-sided’ novel about life under the Apartheid government. I’m not sure why it is expected that Palestinians who have been oppressed for being Palestinian should have to tell the story of their oppressors in a way other than how they see them.”

Susan was educated at the University of South Carolina and worked as a medial writer. Though she had a penchant for writing, she got into it full-time only after she lost her job. She says, “Before working as a medical writer, I worked as a researcher for a pharmaceutical company. But in 2002, I was laid off from my job. I used the time I had to write while I looked for a job.”

Susan has read quite a few books written by Indian writers, whom she considers hugely talented. “Arundhati Roy was the first Indian writer whose work I loved. Her Booker Prize book, The God Of Small Things, is one of my favourite books. Most contemporary readers like books that ‘show, not tell’. As a reader, I like to be told, but told in a way that only few people can tell. Arundhati is such a writer. Talent of other Indian writers has been recognised in many Western forums, such as the Booker Prize with writers such as Aravind Adiga and Kiran Desai, both of whom I like,” she ends.