Review: Miral by Rula Jebreal.

This book’s setting is the Middle East and represents the twentieth century Palestinian women. The time was 1948 during the turbulent Israeli and Palestinian conflict and how it affected the people and their environment. It was well written, fully developed characters describing how they survived living in the chaos. The endless humiliations and cruelty that Palestinians have to endure are seen through the eyes of the various women in the book and the way they cope. The book is nonfiction and I believe the life there was accurately told. There are so many books written on how women are treated as a possession in so many different countries that every story needs to be told and listen to.

This story starts out when violence erupts in Jerusalem and Hind Husseini, a young Arab woman, finds about fifty children abandoned in the streets. She decides to take them home with her and desperately struggles to find a larger place to house them all and begs on the streets for food to nourish them. Hind goes on and dedicates her life providing these children with love and education and through the tough times she managed to open an orphanage for many more children who were left without parents and a home. Her character was stern and bonding but she had to be this way because some of the older children were taking part in the struggle for Palestinian independence.

Than we have Miral, who came to the orphanage at the age of five with her sister. They lost their mother through tragedy and their father could not properly take care of them. Miral was one of Hinds best students in school but as she got older she became involved with the demonstrations against the Military that was controlling their country.

Being of Palestinian heritage, daughter of an Imam, daughter of a dancer, associated with various political conflicts, having the motherly love from Hind, volunteering in the children’s refugee camps, and finally her befriending with a Jewish women Miral has her own story to unfold as she matures within political boundaries and struggles with her own view points and culture conflicts.

This book started off slow but my interest spiked as I turned the pages……
( )

Miral tells the story of the Palestinean/Israeli conflict through the eyes of a young woman who comes of age during the violence in Jerusalem. Miral and her sister are raised in an orphanage by a Hind, an Arab woman who works hard to provide all the lost children of Jerusalem a safe place to grow up. To keep the orphanage safe and funded she walks a very careful and neutral political line. So when young Miral begins to participate in demonstrations and get involved with militant student organizations she threatens the safety of the orphanage that took her in.

While the story here is an important one that needs to be told, I had a very hard time relating to and understanding Miral. I understood her motivations and anger, but somehow just never connected with her personality. I found myself wondering if I wouldn't have appreciated the story more if it had been true rather than fictional. I did enjoy the parts written from the perspective of Hind, the woman running the orphanage more and was sorry the story wasn't hers instead of Miral's. I loved that though she was firmly working for peace she wasn't above manipulating various government officials to get the supplies she needed and was also quite good at it! Still the insight about what it is like to grow up in Jerusalem on one side of such a violent and fundamental conflict was valuable.

I listened to this book on audio, read by Sneha Mathan. She did a fabulous job and her beautiful, smooth voice was a pleasure to listen to. This is one book that was enhanced by the reading for me. ( )

A young girl's life in a Palestinian children's home.

Ms Jebreal is a journalist and I found the first half of the book read very much like an extended newspaper article. This section covered the lives of Hind Husseini and several of Miral's relatives. However, once I reached the story of Miral herself, the whole feel of the book changed and became much more immediate; evoking more reaction from myself as a reader.

Hind Husseini, whose school Miral attended for much of her childhood, was an amazing woman. She chanced upon 50 desperate children, orphaned and lost after their village had been ransacked in 1948. They had been dumped near the Church of the Holy Sepulcre in Jerusalem and had nowhere to go. Hind gathered them up and took them home, and it was from this event that she started a children's home. As time passed, she managed to procure some financial aid and the children's home grew to a school for nearly 2,000 girls.

Miral and her sister lost their mother when they were very young and their father felt unable to raise them alone. He brought them to Hind and they lived at the school, going home only at weekends. At first they were very homesick, but the school provided a stable base for them and Hind became like a surrogate mother to Miral.
As Miral grew and gradually became more aware of events taking place around her, she felt compelled to become more active. She helped in a refugee camp, but wanted to do more for the Palestinian struggle against the loss of their homeland. Hind did not permit her pupils to march in demonstrations so Miral had to do so illicitly. It was here that she met another activist and fell in love. However, she also had an Israeli friend, which gave the whole a much more balanced feel.

This book is marketed as fiction, in spite of the fact that the author is known to have stated that it is based on her life. From this, I would deduce that the events are factual but some of the characters and details may be fictional. This seems fair enough to me, as long as I know.
As yet I have not seen the film but I believe it is a good representation of the book and I fully intend to see it soon.
I would also recommend Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa as an excellent novel in the same genre. ( )

Handlingen i boka foregår i Israel fra 1948 og frem til rundt 1991, og det er først og fremst palestinernes historie som fortelles - basert på virkelige hendelser og personer.

Den palestinske kvinnen Nadia flykter i svært ung alder fra en stefar som har misbrukt henne seksuelt, mens moren så en annen vei. Hun har en indre uro i seg som ikke forsvinner etter at hun gifter seg med den hjertegode Jamal. De får to døtre - Miral og Randa - men allerede mens jentene er ganske små, dør Nadja under tragiske omstendigheter. Faren velger å plassere døtrene på det som etter hvert har blitt Hinds kostskole for jenter i Jerusalem.

Da den første intifadaen (stein-krigen) starter på slutten av 80-tallet, våkner Mirals politiske bevissthet. Hun bestemmer seg for å delta i kampen for et fritt Palestina, hvor demonstrasjoner og terrorhandlinger inngår. Men når det eneste våpenet de har er steiner, sier det seg selv at det er en farlig og nokså fåfengt kamp ...

Språket i boka er nokså dårlig. Dessuten opplevde jeg personskildringene som nokså flate og endimensjonale. Gang på gang vipper historien over i det banale. Det er f.eks. vel mange beskrivelser av tårer som renner nedover Mirals kinn. Jeg reagerte også på at historien om to folkegrupper som kjemper om det samme landet, blir svært ensidig fremstilt. Dette irriterte meg under lesingen. Like fullt må jeg si at historien som sådan er gripende og tidvis også meget interessant. Så får det heller være at forfatteren nok har hatt som ambisjon å få verden til å åpne øynene sine for det palestinske folks lidelser gjennom å skrive en slik bok - en bok som for øvrig har blitt bestselger, bl.a. i Italia. Når jeg gir boka 3 1/2 stjerne, er det først og fremst historien som sådan jeg har gitt uttelling. ( )