RABA’I Al-Madhoun was born in Al-Majdal, Ashkalan (now Ashkelon), Palestine, in 1945. Along with his parents, he was uprooted from his homeland during the Nakba exodus and spent his childhood in the Khan Younis Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He studied at Alexandria University, Egypt, and has been working as a journalist since 1973.

Al-Madhoun’s début novel, The Lady from Tel Aviv, is a bestseller in the Arab world, and was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2010, the so-called ‘Arabic Booker’. It has now been translated into English by Elliott Colla.

A background about the writer is essential as the storyline of The Lady from Tel Aviv draws a lot from Al-Madhoun’s life. The similarities make one think that the book is partially autobiographical: the protagonist Walid Dahman is, like Al-Madhoun, a Palestinian who was born in Ashdod and was forced to leave his hometown. Both became refugees in Gaza and could not return for decades, and both are writers and journalists living in London. Yet, despite the similarities, the book is a work of fiction.

Dahman returns to Gaza, after acquiring a British passport, to visit his mother who he has been unable to meet since he left for university 38 years ago. From the start of his journey he is paranoid; he fears that he will either not be allowed to board the plane or be arrested by Israeli agents.

On the flight from London, the seat next to him is taken by an Israeli actress, Dana Ahuva, who is heading back to Tel Aviv after having failed to convince her Ukrainian-Jewish boyfriend to take the Israeli citizenship and live with her. Being Jewish, they have “the ‘right of return’, the right all Palestinian refugees have been denied since the Nakba in 1948.” They soon discover differences in their perspectives of the land they both call home.

When she accuses Dahman for being a “negligent son” for not visiting his mother sooner, he replies that “the occupation is what is cruel, not me […] I haven’t been able to go back since 1967. I wasn’t allowed to go back.”

Al-Madhoun has chosen the novel within a novel format; his main character Dahman is writing a novel about a man he encountered briefly in the past. One of the reasons of his visit is to do some research for his story about a Palestinian residing in Germany who returns to Gaza to look for the woman he fell in love with 30 years earlier. When the protagonist of Dahman’s novel, Adel, appears in the flesh, the plots overlaps to some extent.

The treatment Dahman receives at the Ben-Gurion airport dispels the theory that crossings for Palestinians are easier if they have a foreign, especially a US or British, passport; he is made to suffer like other Palestinians, many of whom have to navigate the crossing as a routine. The actual passage into Gaza takes hours; the demeaning, inhumane attitude of the officers manning the crossing, and the bureaucratic hassles and delaying tactics are so vividly described that they can be felt by the reader:

“I find myself staring at a man sitting in a wheelchair. He is wearing a baseball cap that hides half his face and his hands lie wilted on the armrests. His body is so slight, anyone could lift him and his chair at the same time. … ‘The sun is too much, sir. Can I walk you over to the shade?’

The man does not answer. He does not raise his eyes to look at me. … He merely waves me away with his hand. … ‘I’m only trying to help.’

‘I’m used to it, man. It’s not my first time sitting here and it won’t be the last. Whenever I go to Ramallah for treatment and try to come back, it’s always the same old crap’.”

Though we are not told the exact period of Dahman’s visit to Gaza, it seems it is soon after the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Much has changed, of course, in the four decades he has been away from home. The life he lived in Gaza almost 40 years ago returns as flashbacks in the early chapters of the book.

Dahman discusses in detail going to his father’s grave and then visiting his friends the night before he left for his studies. He recalls conversations with friends and cousins. While the family’s story forms the bulk of the book, the underlying theme of the plight of the Palestinians is ever-present. The sound of military activities of various kinds, power outages, and the ever-present fear of being hit by a stray bullet shows the death and the destruction that have become a part of daily life. In telling the story of how people live, the book lays bare the harsh realities of dispossession, exile and occupation.

Despite the serious nature of the subject and the harrowing descriptions, The Lady from Tel Aviv is an easy read as Al-Madhoun mostly makes his characters narrate events and discuss the politics of Hamas, Fatah and the PA in a light, often mocking manner.

The Lady from Tel Aviv can be read as a mere piece of fiction, but those who read it for insight into the Palestinian predicament of exile, occupation and homecoming will find that it provides angles that most news reports and articles don’t.

The reviewer is a Dawn staffer

The Lady from Tel Aviv

(NOVEL)

By Raba’i Al-Madhoun

Translated by Elliott Colla

Telegram Books, UK

ISBN 978-1846590917

254pp.