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Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
And then there were none: Wknd interviews Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem
What is the fate of Gaza? What will it be? North Gaza in May. (Reuters) In the 77 years since the formation of Israel, there have been no clear answers. The newest plan for its future envisions another gleaming city in the desert, one that is being called a 'Riviera of the Middle East'. Images from the news show starving children and bombed-out hospitals. A media tent has been bombed and journalists killed. There is now talk of Israel seizing Gaza City. Eleven years ago, when the Palestinian journalist and writer Ibtisam Azem wrote her work of speculative fiction about the sudden disappearance of all Gazans, she couldn't have predicted that AI-generated images of this region, cleared of its people and populated instead by luxury high-rises and berths for yachts, would be posted online by the President of the United States. In her book, nonetheless, she takes what she calls that 'one ardent wish' to its final conclusion: all Palestinians vanish one day. The Book of Disappearance was written in 2014, translated from the Arabic by the Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon (also, incidentally, Azem's husband), released in the UK in 2024, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize this year. In it, the protagonist Alaa Assaf, a cameraman, vanishes along with all other Palestinians, halfway through the narrative. From then on, the tale is taken over by Ariel Levy, an Israeli journalist who lived next door to him. 'Storytelling is part of surviving,' says Ibtisam Azem. After the vanishings, Levy goes into his neighbour's home and finds a diary that contains his memories, the memories of his grandmother, and details of the life of a Palestinian in Israel, with all its contradictions and agonies. This is Azem's second novel. Her first, The Sleep Thief (2011), was about the absurdities and microaggressions faced by a young Palestinian man in Jerusalem. The author now lives in New York City. One reason she writes fiction, she says, is to preserve her history, which is not reflected in official history books. 'Storytelling,' she adds, 'is also part of surviving.' Excerpts from an interview. * How did the idea for this book come about? In New York, in 2010 or 2011, I heard the then mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat (now minister of economy) say on TV that Palestinians and Israelis are treated as equals in that city. It infuriated me when the Western journalist he was speaking to didn't challenge this false claim. I started to write an article, but felt it was more suited as a novel. I was reminded of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin saying, in 1992, 'If only the sea would swallow Gaza.' I remembered a 2004 interview with Haaretz newspaper in which Israeli historian Benny Morris said that Zionist militant groups should have finished the job of ethnically cleansing all Palestinians in 1948. And I thought: What would the Israelis do, as a settler colonial society, if their so-called enemy were to suddenly disappear? But I didn't want to write a novel that only dealt with the colonisers, and this is where Alaa's memories come into play. The Gaza Strip in June. (AFP) * Was there a reason you chose Jaffa in particular as the setting? I grew up in a small town called Taybeh, about 30 km north of Jaffa. Like Alaa, my mother was born in Jaffa in 1947 and internally displaced with her family in 1948. So, as a child, I grew up hearing stories of displacement and of what Jaffa used to be. On visits to Jaffa with my grandmother, she would tell me about places and neighbourhoods that no longer existed because they had been taken over and occupied by Israelis. Because I grew up hearing these histories from my parents and grandparents, I had a wealth of material already. But I also had to do a lot of research about the city and other issues to be on firm ground. * What do those of us on the outside not understand about the loss of Jaffa? This was one of the most important cities in Palestine. It had about 100,000 residents, the majority of whom were Palestinians, with some Jewish inhabitants. In 1948, most of the Palestinian inhabitants were displaced. Only 4,000 or so remained. The ones who were displaced left for other parts of Palestine or for neighbouring countries. Many of those living in Gaza today are children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees from Jaffa and other cities and villages. In all, 750,000 Palestinians were displaced. Palestinian society was taken apart. Despite a UN Resolution legalising the right of the Palestinian people to return, they were not permitted to do so. Large parts of their land had been confiscated. * Through history, marginalised peoples have turned to storytelling as a final act of resistance — a way to keep from being forgotten, or erased. You've said that is how you feel too… Writing fiction, especially for the colonised, allows us a space for our alternative history, as it is not reflected in official history books. Writing novels is also liberating since it accommodates oral history, passed down from our grandparents or survivors. We are adding our voices to those that came before us, and also wrote; and we bequeath our voices to those who will come after us. It was through my reading of other Palestinians' works that I began to understand my place in the world. Reading the works of other colonised peoples helped me understand how others have also suffered, and helped me feel less alone. Growing up, my parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, would sit around and tell stories of how things had been, passing down our history and preserving our memories. Often, in the worst stories, there would be dark humour, to help themselves and others process what had happened or was happening. With time, I realised that storytelling is also part of surviving. * Is the war in Gaza the disappearance you feared? The Palestinian people, like all other people, are resilient and continue to resist and fight for justice. We will not disappear! The disappearance in the book is a metaphor for how Palestinians lead an invisible existence. It was an attempt to capture the internal conflicts: What does it mean to live in this place and try to decolonise yourself? What does it mean to try to tell your story in a world in which you are neither seen nor heard? Let me say that no one could have predicted the magnitude and scale of the horrors taking place in Gaza.
Middle East Eye
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Israeli settlers torch wheat fields near Nablus, farmers suffer heavy losses
Israeli settlers have torched roughly four hectares (10 acres) of wheat fields near the northern West Bank town of Sebastia, local officials told the Wafa news agency. The head of Sebastia municipality, Mohammad Azem, said the settlers came from Shavei Shomron — an illegal settlement — and a nearby outpost. 'Azem said the wheat crop was completely destroyed, causing heavy financial losses for the two farmers,' Wafa reported. The arson attack comes amid a sharp rise in settler and military violence across the occupied West Bank, as Israel's war on Gaza continues to escalate.
CairoScene
05-03-2025
- Politics
- CairoScene
‘The Book of Disappearance' Reframes Dystopia in Palestine
'The Book of Disappearance' Reframes Dystopia in Palestine The longlist for the International Booker Prize, the world's most esteemed award for translated fiction, has been announced. Amongst the 13 works selected for the longlist is Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem's novel, 'The Book of Disappearance', translated by Sinan Antoon. Originally published in Arabic in 2014, the novel presents an unsettling story of the sudden and unexplained disappearance of all Palestinians. It is widely accepted that the novel neatly falls into the dystopia genre. Yet, in light of US President Trump's proposals to 'clear out' Gaza, this dystopia bears a disturbing resonance with the present reality. Set in a future Jaffa, the story begins when one day, Israelis wake up to discover that every Palestinian has mysteriously vanished. What begins as a moment of bewilderment quickly turns into celebration, only for that euphoria to fade just as swiftly, giving way to paranoia. As uncertainty takes hold, Israel's society spirals into turmoil, revealing the fractures lurking beneath the surface. In January 2024, Azem told me that the novel is like 'holding a mirror to the present.' This already resonated poignantly post-October 7th, with the genocide threatening to lead to a disappearance of Palestinians in Gaza in a similarly instantaneous time frame. The proposed 'clearing' out of the Gaza strip, plans to 'have fun' with the war-ravaged area by turning it into a Riviera-esque tourist resort, is nothing but a euphemistic frame for genocide in its clearest form. The proposal and the recently released sickening AI-generated advertisement for it prompt descriptions of dystopia. It feels like something ripped from the pages of a novel - too surreal, too horrific to be real life. I spoke with Azem from her apartment in New York after the book's long listing. It was our first conversation in over a year. While her novel continues to reflect the "war of many faces" unfolding today, one with the same ultimate goal of disappearance that she envisions in her fiction, Azem emphasised that her book, and reality, ultimately transcend dystopia. "The reality is worse than any novel could predict or imagine," she remarked. The novel's narration is both polychronic and polyphonic, weaving together multiple time frames and perspectives. A significant portion unfolds through the diary entries of Palestinian Alaa, who writes to preserve his recently deceased grandmother's memories of Jaffa before it fell under occupation. Amidst the destruction of his homeland, the erasure of his people and the systematic dismantling of his maternal language, Alaa clings to these memories like a lifeline. Yet, with each chapter, his memory begins to fray, becoming hazy and blurred. Palestinian memory, Azem tells me, is 'fluid and omnipresent' - yet, also, dangerous and vulnerable. As Alaa begins to question the cracks in his memory, and stumbles between the boundaries of fiction and reality, we are also driven to reflect upon our similar predicament. We doubt whether what we are reading, seeing, watching is truly happening; we, too, find ourselves suspended in the space between reality and disbelief. Ironically, the disappearance of Palestinians in the novel ultimately makes their presence all the more salient. Physically absent, yet ontologically glaring. Palestinian memory, as Azem emphasises, screams amidst the silence in the Israeli society depicted, rendering any illusion of peace or stability in their absence impossible. For Azem and for Alaa, writing and memory are synonymous. The novel ultimately reminds us that to write is ultimately to refuse erasure, to perforate silence with sound. 'The Book of Disappearance' is not only a mirror of the present, but also a testament to the enduring power of Palestinian literature in challenging hegemonic narratives that seek to justify genocide and distort history. Pre- and post-disappearance, Palestinians in the novel are silenced, as is their suffering. The history preceding and explaining this moment is muffled. Alaa writes, 'What if we were to scream into their ears? Would they hear us?' This question echoes far beyond the pages of the novel. For Azem, dystopia is not just the bodies, the death tolls or the devastation. 'This is the real dystopia,' she states. 'The world is watching this go on in silence.' The novel ends with a provocative image of Ariel, Alaa's Israeli neighbour, finding and claiming Alaa's diary. He decides he will translate excerpts from it into Hebrew and will sell it as a book, entitled 'The Chronicle of Pre-Disappearance'. This act of narrative appropriation mirrors the very forces that have shaped the present moment, where a convicted sex-offender billionaire holds the power to facilitate this ongoing Nakba, the same erasure and appropriation we see in the novel. As Ariel drifts off to sleep, the diary remains open. Azem tells me the growing attention the novel has received since its long listing has "come at a time when it is most needed.' The novel, despite being set in a future society, enables us to grieve and remember the unaccountable and historical losses. 'You write to stay with people,' Azem reminds us. There will be no disappearance of Palestinian memory as long as there are words on paper, as long as there is Palestinian literature. Azem's novel, whilst looking to the past and warning of a possible future scenario, ultimately positions the present as a tense, charged juncture. Its speculative dystopia is not a distant fiction but a provocation; an urgent call to confront the forces of erasure and appropriation unfolding before us. The novel's ending lingers like an unfinished sentence; a book left open, a story still being written. It is a stark reminder that memory, like history, is never truly erased; it waits to be reclaimed, reinterpreted, and fought for.
