★★★★☆
Jamilah has always believed she knows where her home is: in a house above a paint shop on the outskirts of Beirut, with her large, chaotic, loving family. But she soon learns that as Palestinian refugees, her family's life in Lebanon is precarious, and they must try to blend in even as they fight to retain their identity. When conflict comes to Beirut, Jamilah's world fractures, and the family is forced to flee to Cairo: another escape, and another slip further away from Palestine, the homeland to which they cannot return. In the end, Jamilah will have to choose between holding on to everything she knows and pursuing a life she can truly call her own.
Aishah finally stopped and bent down, cupped a handful of grains and threw them over her shoulders. Sand takes centuries to form, and in an instant is converted into concrete to built whole cities, Jamil had told her one morning before leaving for the field. She should have understood then that no matter how ancient a thing is, it can be destroyed overnight.
Sara M Saleh's debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living, published through Affirm Press and the Sweatshop mentorship program, is a poignant story about loss and love, displacement and discovery, masculinity and matriarchy. It is a story that explores what it means to lose a home in a world unforgiving; centuries of history destroyed with a single explosion of bullets, bombs and bigotry.
But Saleh has a powerful message to tell: the dead live through the songs of the living.
Among all the chaos of displacement and destruction that occurs throughout the novel, Saleh does not forget to celebrate the living. The reader is transported into a vibrant world of language, labneh, and lemon trees. The novel follows the life of young Jamilah as she navigates what it means to be Palestinian and Lebanese in a world where being the former feels like a sin and the latter a sombre reminder of their displaced reality. Still, Jamilah quickly learns that being a daughter of a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother is something to be proud of, a sense of life given to her by Teta Aishah, who knows exactly what it means to lose oneself in war and the importance of preserving one's identity.
Whether done intentionally or not, Saleh beautifully foreshadow's Teta Aishah's wisdom in the very first few pages of the novel, before we learn about her Nakba story in Chapter 2:
'When we're done, we'll have mint and basil and rosemary. These will sprout blades and shrubs. Perhaps next, flowers like gardenia, at the front. Maybe over there, fig trees and orange trees and my favourite, lemon trees!' Teta said, non shadows pirouetting across her face. 'Together we will dig and water and sow seeds, organise beds and borders, and pot and prune and pick.'
This scene captures so much of what the story is about. The metaphor of a garden full with life and colour celebrates the living, while the shadow across Teta's face suggests, at least to me, a darkness - of a story buried within, an experience too horrible to tell. Still, Teta goes on, and the next sentence of pruning and picking and potting and planting alludes to the importance of sprouting - of living - even when surrounded by the darkness of the soil.
This is exactly what Jamilah and her family do. We follow their journey as they flee war-torn Beirut for Cairo, an unfamiliar territory yet a welcome breath of fresh air from the tensions brewing back home. But what really drives this story forward is the sense of solidarity amongst the women of the family: Jamilah, her sisters, her mother, and her grandmother. Their strength and tenacity show the true power of women's voice and place, and even while the men around them brood, threaten and dominate, they still stand tall. And it is the loss and love experienced by these women that make for some of the most moving moments.
And all this is captured within Saleh's poetic yet evocative prose, a skill Saleh masterfully applies to transport readers directly into hearts and minds of not only Jamilah and her family, but the tension-filled city of Beirut, the bustling cityscape of Cairo, and the unfamiliar city-cove of Sydney. It is a novel brimming with a strong sense of culture and family, of life among death that makes it an absolute must read.
Above all the wonderful storytelling, this is a novel that deserves attention for its relevance today. If you want to understand what it means to be displaced because of war and still feel unwelcome, read this book. Australia has much to learn about the plight of displaced people around the world, especially the plight of Palestinians from the terror of the Israeli government. We all do.
How would you rate this book?
Loved it!
It's alright.
Not a fan!
It's on my TBR pile.
Until next time,
It's on my TBR now!