Wild Thorns

Wild Thorns is a chronicle of life in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. As the novel opens, Usama, a young Palestinian, is returning there from the Gulf, where he has been working as a translator. A supporter of the resistance movement, he has come home on a mission: to blow up the buses that transport Palestinian workers into Israel every day. But Usama finds a far more complicated reality than he had expected; he is shocked to discover that many of his fellow citizens have adjusted to life under military rule. Bruised by harsh exchanges with friends and family, his mind now torn, he sets out to accomplish his mission anyway - with disastrous results. Written in Arabic in the West Bank and first published in Jerusalem, Wild Thorns, with its panorama of characters and unsentimental portrayals of everyday life, is the first Arab novel to give a true picture of social and personal relations under the occupation. Its convincing sincerity, uncompromising honesty and rich emotional texture plead elegantly for the cause of survival in the face of oppression.