Against the Loveless World: Winner of the Palestine Book Award

A Thrilling, Defiant Novel Fatima BhuttoA Masterpiece Marc Lamont HillWonderful ... Shines A Ray Of Hope Into Some Very Dark Places Michael PalinA Fearless Work Of Imagination Ahdaf Soueifwinner Of The Palestine Book Awardnahr Has Been Confined To The Cube: Nine Square Metres Of Glossy Grey Cinderblock, Devoid Of Time, Its Patterns Of Light And Dark Nothing To Do With Day And Night. Journalists Visit Her, But Get Nowhere; Because Nahr Is Not Going To Share Her Story With Them. The World Outside Calls Nahr A Terrorist, And A Whore; Some Might Call Her A Revolutionary, Or A Hero. But The Truth Is, Nahr Has Always Been Many Things, And Had Many Names. She Was A Girl Who Learned, Early And Painfully, That When You Are A Second Class Citizen Love Is A Kind Of Desperation; She Learned, Above All Else, To Survive. She Was A Girl Who Went To Palestine In The Wrong Shoes, And Without Looking For It Found What She Had Always Lacked In The Basement Of A Battered Beauty Parlour: Purpose, Politics, Friends. She Found A Dark-Eyed Man Called Bilal, Who Taught Her To Resist; Who Tried To Save Her When It Was Already Too Late. Nahr Sits In The Cube, And Tells Her Story To Bilal. Bilal, Who IsnT There; Bilal, Who May Not Even Be Alive, But Who Is Her Only Reason To Get Out.