Let It Be Morning

by Sayed Kashua, Miriam Shlesinger (Translator)

Soon to be a major motion picture from award–winning director Eran Kolirin In his searing new novel, the young Arab-Israeli writer Sayed Kashua introduces a disillusioned journalist who returns to his hometown, an Arab village within Israel, hoping to reclaim the simplicity of life among kin. But the prodigal son returns to a place where the people are petty and provincial and everything is smaller than he remembers. When Israeli tanks surround the village without explanation, the community devolves into a Darwinian jungle, and the journalist and his family must negotiate the fault lines of a world on the brink of implosion. With the enduring moral and literary power of Albert Camus and George Orwell, Let It Be Morning proves Sayed Kashua to be a fearless, prophetic observer of a political and human quagmire that offers no easy answers. 

Genres: Fiction, Middle East, Israel, Contemporary, Ebooks, Literature, Translated Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Czech name version: Sajjid Kašua.
Slovak name version: Said Kašua

Sayed Kashua (Arabic: سيد قشوع‎, Hebrew: סייד קשוע‎; b. 1975) is an Israeli-Arab author and journalist born in Tira, Israel, known for his books and humoristic columns in Hebrew.

هو كاتب وصحفي فلسطيني إسرائيلي يعيش في القدس ويكتب بالعبرية. ولد سيد قشوع في مدينة الطيرة، مدينة عربية وسط إسرائيل، لأب يعمل موظفا في البنك ولأم تعمل معلمة. هو الثاني من بين أربعة أبناء. حين كان في ال15 من عمره تم قبوله لمدرسة العلوم والفنون في القدس، وهي مدرسة مرموقة، تعمل باللغة العبرية ومعظم تلاميذها من اليهود. بعد انهائه تعليمه الثانوي تعلم في الجامعة العبرية في القدس موضوع الفلسفة والعلوم الاجتماعية. بعد انهائه تعليمه عمل مراسلا للصحيفة العبرية المقدسية "كول هاعير" ("כל העיר") وبعد ذلك تحول أيضا إلى ناقد تلفزيوني وصاحب عمود شخصي في صحيفة هآرتس. كتب قشوع بالعبرية فقط، على عكس غيره من الكتاب العرب في إسرائيل الذين كتبوا بالعربية.

Reviews

[Barbaraw - su anobii aussi · Rating 4 out of 5]

la frontiera dentro di noi

Un romanzo inquietante, potrebbe essere stato concepito da un Saramago, ma la differenza, qui, è che questo incubo di città assediata è reale, troppo reale.
Il protagonista, un giornalista arabo che vive in Israele, stanco di essere continuamente oggetto di battute sul suo presunto essere un terrosrista, ritorna alla propria piccola città palestinese d'origine. Da un giorno all'altro questa città senza nome viene isolata, assediata ed ogni possibile reazione umana ha luogo nel piccolo inferno clautrofobico delle comunità senza sbocco.
Ora, il personaggio non è più il "terrorista arabo" sempre in agguato della sua vita precedente bensì diventa immediatamente la "spia israelina traditore dei suoi". Diffidenza e cattiverie saliranno col peggiorare della situazione generale.

Il racconto è doppiamente "cieco": cieco perché raccontato dal giornalista, tagliato fuori dalla sua vita ordinaria, dal suo lavoro a causa della sua appartanenza, cieco anche perché siamo in una città chiusa - come succede nella Peste di Camus - e le notizie non arrivano, si subiscono senza nulla conoscere della situazione : non c'è più da mangiare, più acqua, più libertà .
Perciò ho pensato a più riprese a Saramago, per il tema della cecità, per l'arbitrario del momento finale, per l'orchestrazione del crescendo di angoscia, ed altre volte a Camus, per la presenza di un giornalista sul terreno, per l'osservazione delle peggiori manifestazioni della natura umana quando arriva "la peste", qualunque essa sia.
Certo, Kashua non è Saramago e nemmeno Camus, ma mi ha insegnato molto sulla condizione lacerata di chi vive la frontiera dentro di sé.

p.s. a triste dimostrazione dell'indole umana partigiana, le reazioni dei lettori a questo libro dipendono dalla loro provenienza: gli arabi lo trovano deprecabile, gli israeliano lo lodano. L'uscita dalla città assediata non la troveremo ancora...

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: Palestinian & Arab Israeli cast

[Shay]

Sayed Kashua is an Arab-Israeli journalist and novelist who often takes the understandable albeit slightly hypercritical stance of "don't think of me as an Arab-Israel writer just because I'm an Arab-Israeli who writes about Arab-Israelis."

The novel begins with the quasi-autobiographical story of a journalist returning with his wife and daughter to the Arab village where he grew up - this is an interesting touch since it roots the average contemporary reader, probably familiar with Kashua's biography through his personal column, in the very real world and leads him to expect the novel to be thinly-veiled autobiography, thus increasing the level of surprise when the events around the narrator/protagonist get gradually crazier. This approach, however, has its price since the story is written in a rather plain and colloquial style, which works fine for the breezy column and the mundane events of the earlier parts of the book, but falls short in the more dramatic scenes, and ultimately makes the whole book feel less like a carefully-considered and plotted work of fiction and more like a really fascinating idea executed almost haphazardly.

The fascinating idea at the core of this work is that, shortly after the journalist's return, the whole village is closed off from the rest of Israel, surrounded by tanks, its power and water cut off, and anyone trying to escape is shot. The story then advances as the protagonist and his family try to survive in this new situation, all the while trying to figure out what exactly is going on around them, and dealing with the problems of food and water shortages, (graphically) overflowing sewage, and eruptions of violence by street gangs and neighbors. I thought this set up had a lot of potential, and consistently wanted for it to develop and expand, thinking of works like Albert Camus's The Plague and even Aharon Appelfeld's Badenheim 1939, but Kashua doesn't venture too far into speculative territory, settling for several days of discomfort and strain, culminating in a violent confrontation between the protagonist's family and their neighbors, which is diffused relatively quickly.

Then, just as the situation becomes untenable, it is resolved by the sudden restoration of water and electricity, which makes way for the surprising (but predictable) twist - the reason for the siege was secret negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, who have now signed a peace agreement under which the village is transferred, in exchange for some Jewish settlements, to the Palestinian authority. Lieberman's dream has come true. And then... that's it. The book ends. Except for a couple of mild hints and incredulous reactions, there's no exploration of life under Palestinian authority. I agree this is a totally different issue and calls for a totally different novel to be written (a sequel perhaps? Let it be Night?), but the desire for a continuation of the narrative tells me something else about the novel - all through reading it, I was waiting for it to start. The book did provide a brief glimpse of what happens when the social order collapses, but it didn't go far enough, halting the plot with a sudden deus ex machina before things got too extreme, and failing to deeply explore the issues it touched upon.

So much for my general criticisms, now let me get a little more nitpicky and fanciful (which is always more fun). In the final scene the journalist talks with his editor at the Israeli paper he worked for, who wants him to write about the events of the last few days and become their regular correspondent in what is now Palestine. He promises him a regular job, but says:

"Listen, there might be a problem with the payment, because we're having crazy cutbacks. So it won't be as much as we used to pay you, but now the cost of living for you there is going to be much lower than here, no?"

This line, which is the final line of the book, made it clear to me that Kashua is more of a columnist than a novelist, or that at least his columnist instincts have taken over and he couldn't resist an easy joke (or a jab at Israeli hypocrisy). There are many things that could have been done differently in the book, but looking at the book on its own terms this last scene could have easily been done better, with the final line serving as both a joke and a sly metafictional wink, and here's how:

Since the book starts by presenting what we suspect is a thinly-veiled version of the author's life before gradually drawing us into the fictional world, I thought the best thing to do at the end would be to throw us back into the author's real world. Thus, when the editor asks the journalist if he could write a few words about what he'd been through, his response should be something like:

"Buddy, I could write a book."

The End.

http://arsprosa.blogspot.co.il/2010/0...

[Rania Masri]

This is a problematic book.
(1) reviewers claim the book discusses the "anti-semitism" in the "arab" community in israel and they point to such a discussion as a positive example of the book. however, there were no examples of anti-semitism in the book. rather, the main characters in the book discuss the discrimination they face from israeli jews.
(2) more importantly, however, the community continues to present itself as 'israeli arabs' and to refer to the palestinians of the west bank as 'palestinians.' those readers who are unfamiliar with the tragic history and ongoing tragic circumstances of palestinians may then get a dangerously incorrect and inaccurate portrayal.

on the other hand: the discussions of the discrimination this palestinian community within israel faces and of the crimes committed against them were then manufactured to present the army as blameless are powerful, as is the presentation of the day-to-day living of this one community.

[Liza Fireman · Rating 4 out of 5]

סייד קשוע הוא כותב משכמו ומעלה. סופר עם כל כך הרבה כשרון, ועם עברית יפיפיה. הספר הזה עולה לדעתי בכמה מונים על פני הספר שלו ״גוף שני יחיד״.

הגיבור בסיפור הוא ערבי בן כמעט 30, עיתונאי בעיתון ישראלי נשוי ואב לילדה. הם חיו שנים בעיר כגולה יהודית, ולאט לאט מצבם הכלכלי מתדרדר, עבודתו כעיתונאי וערביותו לא ממש מתקבלת מצויין אצל היהודים, והוא מחליט בלית ברירה לחזור הביתה לכפר הערבי בו גדל. אותו כפר ערבי בו גם הוא וגם אשתו לא מרגישים בבית, ולא מעוניינים לראות עצמם כחלק ממנו. הדיסוננס של להיות ערבי, אבל לרצות להיות יותר כמו היהודים מורגש בספר, ומצד שני, הכעס הגדול אצל הגיבור, על היהודים וההתנהגות שלהם כלפי הערבים.

במהלך הספר, הכפר מכותר על ידי הצבא הישראלי, אין יוצא ואין בא. המים מנותקים, הביוב, החשמל וגם קווי הטלפון, ואין אספקת אוכל או מים. איש אינו יודע מה קורה, ואנו מגיעים לסיפורו של הגיבור, מתגדלה לנו ילדותו, יכולותיו ושונותו מהאחרים, וגם בגרותו, מקצועו, בושתו באי היכולת להרוויח את לחמו, ושוב הכאב של לא להיות פה ולא שם, ערבי ישראלי פלסטיני, זהות לא פשוטה להכלה.

סופו של הספר פשוט מעולה. אבל למעשה כל הספר פשוט מעולה. סייד קשוע סופר מצויין ועם עברית של הטובים בכותבים. 4+ כוכבים.

[Salma Mohaimeed · Rating 2 out of 5]

عن العرب الساكنين في الأراضي المحتلة " عرب اسرائيل "، من الصعب أو لأقل من الظلم تصنيفهم فهم لاهم معنا ولا علينا أو ... لا أدري لكني أعلم ومتيقنة أن هذه الرواية مُملة مُملة مُملة.

[Miriam Cihodariu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just as bitterly funny as 'Dancing Arabs', but with a much darker and serious note. The atmosphere is one of uncertainty and paranoia (a partially justified one, actually), where the tension is prolonged indefinitely.

The Israel Arabs, proud of their state citizenship and defining themselves as 'better' than the 'others', still on the West Bank / in the Gaza strip, are faced with a harsh surprise. Tanks are enclosing their village (small town suburb, more like), their power and water supplies are cut off, but they stubbornly refuse to think this can be 'serious'. First, they think the soldiers might be on a mission and as soon as they eliminate their target they will go away. Then they try to offer up the illegal residents (unregistered workers from the West Bank) to them, only to find that each person who approaches the fence just gets shot and killed. Still, they refuse to admit worry. They keep rationalizing it away until there's no more food and no more water and dirty fights break out.

I won't give spoilers on the ending, but the feeling the book leaves you with is harrowing. The tension and not knowing anything about what and why is happening and for how long it will go on are so easy to feel.

About the unavoidable question of politics - I think the author does a good job or being relatively impartial (judging by both books I read by him so far).

[Dimple · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* This book will make you feel all kinds of uncomfortable. From the depictions of Israel, to the the erasure of identity, and to the overall Kafkaesque writing style, Kashua paints a picture of what happens to a village when the Israeli government locks it down with no access to water, electricity or food. Though the language is simple, the intensity with which he presents the dilemma of Israeli-Arabs caught in the middle of the conflict with striking observation is impeccable, and at times, oddly humorous. A star short due to the abrupt ending which could have instead been retaliated with a sarcastic quip by the protagonist.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is hard to describe. Fantasy fable about the cognitive dissonance of being an Israeli Arab is the closest I can get. The writing is deceptively simple—the more I think about it, the more thematically artful and complex I see it is. The story takes place over less than a week, but during a time of extreme tumult for the characters and their community. And I think that’s all I can (or should) say, other than read it!

[Andrew Jacobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a group that operates at the seam between Israeli-Jewish and Muslim-Palestinian society, Israeli-Arabs complicate our understanding of the traditional binaries between Jewish and Muslim, and Israeli and Palestinian. Sayed Kashua's 2006 novel "Let It Be Morning," examines the Israeli-Arab position in Israeli society and reveals ultimately that the aforementioned dichotomies are more fluid than we may have first imagined.

Sayed Kashua, an Israeli-Arab writer, journalist, and screenwriter, was born in the Israeli-Arab town of Tira in 1975. He writes exclusively in Hebrew, perhaps for practicality, having been educated at an elite Hebrew-operating Jerusalem boarding school for gifted teens and later at Hebrew University. Or perhaps he writes in Hebrew for ideological reasons, to close the linguistic and cultural divide between Jews and Muslims living in Israel. Either way, Kashua’s choice to write in Hebrew is a complicated one and does not simply represent the usual reality of a citizen writing in the language of his state. To the contrary, Hebrew is the language of the Jewish people, not his own, and as such it holds enormous cultural, historical, religious and national significance for Israeli-Jews as well as Jews worldwide. Of course, Hebrew also bears political significance, having become closely intertwined with Zionist movements of Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries. One might assert, then, that Kashua’s choice to write in Hebrew as an Arab indicates his successful integration into Israeli society, and perhaps a yielding to or acceptance of the Zionist narrative and the legitimacy of the state of Israel. And yet, as A.J. Drijvers states in his 2015 thesis, “When it comes to the classification of Hebrew literature written by Israeli Arabs there is no scholarly consensus on whether these works belong to the body of Palestinian literature or whether they belong to the body of Israeli literature” (9). That the works of Israeli-Arabs would even be considered Palestinian is telling of the distinction or non-distinction between the two groups: that by standards of religion and ethnicity, and specifically not geography, Israeli-Arabs and Palestinians have close ties and are, in fact, even members of the same family in many cases. What Kashua expresses, then, by writing in Hebrew is a complex picture of what it means to be an Israeli-Arab, a simultaneous insider and outsider of both groups embodied by that label."

In his second novel, Let It Be Morning, Kashua explores these identities and describes the practical manifestations of the various tensions between them. After returning to his hometown village with his wife and baby after living and working as a journalist in Jewish Jerusalem, the unnamed protagonist is bewildered along with everyone else when the village is besieged by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). As the besiegement continues to strangle the village day after day, life inside becomes nearly anarchical as theft becomes rampant and gangs begin to exert control by force. Ultimately the blockade is uplifted, and life returns to normal, except for the fact that the village was part of land-swap between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and is now located in the new state of Palestine, all of which further confuses for the villagers their already-unclear nationalist loyalties.
The protagonist himself, an Israeli-Arab, is the object of constant suspicion and feelings of betrayal throughout the novel by both Israeli-Jewss and Israeli-Arabs. As the Second Intifada, a period of armed and deadly conflict from 2000-2004, rages on, the protagonist begins to encounter racism against Arabs in Israel. He confronts graffiti calling for Arab deportation, becomes subject to harsher editorial checks by his editor-in-chief, and security guards start to frisk him more carefully than his Jewish counterparts. Arabs, he explains, are viewed by Jews as an insidious fifth column, a parasitic force that is eating away at the very Jewish fabric of the state. As the situation worsens, no longer can he criticize the Israeli government, he says, such a thing became “an exclusively Jewish prerogative” (20). The protagonist experiences shame, resentment, and even guilt, for the Arab suicide bombers, the “cold-blooded murders…, God, the virgins, paradise” and himself, for surrendering himself to such overt racism (21). At a certain point the cognitive dissonance becomes too overbearing. The journalist needs to clarify his loyalties to himself and escape the tensions that living and working as an Arab in Jewish-Israel brings. So he returns with his family back to his hometown Arab village, a place that unbeknownst to him at the time is relatively impoverished, rife with crime, and virtually absent of social and economic advancement.

​The Israeli-Arab’s in the village, living under democratic Israeli rule, try to rationalize and understand the Israeli military’s rather unusual besiegement of their village, which is reminiscent of any Kafka novel and the utter confusion that his characters’ experience in their absurd situations. It is especially confusing to them because the Israeli-Arabs, on the whole, view themselves as loyal, upstanding citizens. At first the protagonist’s family and others believe that the besiegement may be part of a covert Israeli operation to arrest someone inside, someone who is perhaps devising a terrorist attack. The protagonist’s father suggests that the Israeli military will enter the village in the middle of the night, with two jeeps, and leave without a word. It’ll be easy, he says, “[c]ause [sic] there’s no way you can keep anything hidden in this village. Nobody gives a damn and everybody cooperates with the police and the security forces. It stopped being considered betrayal long ago” (93). In this way, the Arabs trust the Israelis, or at least cede to their demands. Later, however, just before a mob storms the protagonist’s home for food, he is rebuked with disdain by the local supermarket owner. After the protagonist denies having any food in his home, the supermarket owner yells out, “The guy you [the mob] are talking to bought out half my store…People at his newspaper must have told him [of the approaching besiegement]” (224). In this way, the protagonist is viewed by the Arabs as a traitor, someone who left home and acculturated to Jewish Israeli society at the expense of his own people. In this position, torn between the urban Jews and village Muslims, he feels like an outsider in both societies.

As an important side note, Sayed Kashua himself, during the summer of 2014, left Hebrew altogether for English (He had already abandoned Arabic at the age of 14.) Now he teaches at the University of Illinois. Just before he picked up his things and emigrated with the family, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, he penned a rather tragic article in Haaretz explaining his decision to leave. “I will write in English,” he says, about “love stories” and “the weather…Snow will be a central character.” The burden became too heavy, the stress too demanding. In a Guardian article that same summer, he elaborates to say that the little war he had been waging for coexistence as an Israeli-Arab to Hebrew-speaking Israel had utterly failed. “Twenty-five years of writing in Hebrew, and nothing has changed,” he writes. “Twenty-five years clutching at the hope, believing it is not possible that people can be so blind,” but they were, and he failed, he says. He mentions Palestinian boy Mohammed Abu Khdeir who was killed by an Israeli-Jewish terrorists following the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli-Jewish boys, and how, with the flare of anti-Arab sentiment in Israel, he had already felt exiled and obliged to emigrate. That autumn, in October, Kashua exchanged a series of letters with Israeli-Jewish author Etgar Keret that The New Yorker published. They shed additional light upon the motivations behind Kashua’s emigration, which was ultimately prompted by the fact that he saw no sustainable future in Israel for children and that his own career endeavoring to communicate the Israeli-Arab experience to the Israeli-Jewish public had been in vain. “This summer, the last vestiges of hope in my heart were crushed,” he writes to Keret. But, at least in Let it Be Morning, Kashua’s protagonist holds out and continues to operate with one foot, so to speak, in both the Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Jewish societies of which he is a part.

Another prime function of Kashua’s novel is to humanize Arab society, exposing both its patriarchal nature and anti-Semitism, while also jettisoning the yellow-license-plate (Israeli) and green-license-plate (Palestinian) dichotomy for a far more nuanced understanding of these different but overlapping groups. One theory that the Arab village concocts in Kashua’s novel to explain the IDF’s besiegement is social and economic: that there are many Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza working illegally in the village. As a result, the mayor as well as the gangs, decide to gather all these workers and submit them to the Israeli military, which stands at the village entrance with foot soldiers, tanks, and a full blockade. The first illegal worker who walks across is shot, and the same with the second, but the mayor is convinced this is because the military assumed they might be holding bombs. Thus he orders them to strip down to their undergarments, at which point the workers continue to cross. Another one is shot. Now they realize, ironically, that it is not the illegal Palestinian workers that the Israelis want. No one knows what they want, or if they want anything at all. But what’s remarkable about this passage is not the villagers’ ignorance but rather how quickly the Israeli-Arab’s distinguish themselves from the illegal Palestinians, thus revealing in reality that these two groups perhaps identify as distinct, though usually conflated by the Israeli public and even Arab members of Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

[Millie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kashua offers a narrative which explores the results of a 6 day blockade of an unspecified Israeli Arab village. I found that the tension Kashua constructs between our nameless Arab protagonist and Israelis throughout the first half of the novel kept me on edge, but appropriately informed the panic and uncertainty in the latter half. The novel moves from the protagonist’s present day problems of protecting his water and food supplies to moments of the past which explore his family relations.
The ending of the novel is perhaps rather fantastical and it’s the reason it loses a star, in my view. Indeed, Kashua imagines a resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict that is inconceivable in reality - but maybe it offers more for the reader to unpack.
Ultimately, I found Let It Be Morning to be an informative read and made me question the ignorance of the characters in the novel (protagonist’s wife) but also my own ignorance of the conflict.

[Petra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wenn man mehr über das Leben, die Schikanen, die Traumata der israelischen Araber erfahren möchte….hier ist das Buch!
Vor vielen, vielen Jahren geschrieben, so aktuell wie nie!

[Ines Beritski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humorvoll, nachdenklich stimmend und herausfordernd - eine Lektüre, mit ganz eigenem Blick auf den Konflikt im Nahen Osten, die zu einem warmen Tee und gemeinsamem Schmunzeln und Grübeln einlädt. Sie nimmt einen mit und lässt für mehrere Tage nicht mehr los. Mehr Leute müssten dieses Buch lesen.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting perspective that I haven’t really considered. I’ve had this book for a few years and I wish I had picked it up earlier

[Lupa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my preparation for the Israel trip, I selected books that could help me understand the country's complexity through various views. In this sense, this book is the vision of an Israeli Arab who writes in Hebrew. Fascinating in itself.

It is a little biographical, a little historical and a lot of uses and customs.

In summary, the book describes the routine of a family shaken by an unexpected blockade of the village.

The village is located in the region known as the Triangle, Arab cities in northern Israel, with Tira being the likely city described in the book (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trian...).

The book smoothly blends family and personal experiences from the past with historical facts and customs of the people.
The writing is fluid and the narrative describes the protagonist's vision and experience in a historic moment of the signing of the peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis.

Israeli Arabs do not stand like other Arabs, much less with the population of WestBank (Daffawiyya) or Gaza (Gazzawiyya). Clear references such as the Palestinians, as if they were not part of this ethnic group.


The book extends the crisis to the extreme (as the parts into which it is divided) to the eternal hope of the Arab/Palestinian people of their submission to a fate that is unchecked.

Gradually, the more the crisis worsens, the family ties are strengthened (clan sense) and the community spirit is fading to the point of mutual aggression and robberies, especially the longer the isolation from the city lasts.

1-Everything has to be wonderful Here
2-There's some kind of Roadblock at the entrance
3-The Paper didn't arrive this morning either
4-Sewage
5-The procession of armed men
6-The new era

No matter how hard you try, the reality of the Arab people of Israel is that of a second-class citizen who has the right to vote but not to work, can study, but can be arrested and prevented from attending school at any time.

The village can be isolated, without water, without electricity, without telephone coverage without any explanation as long as it is “internal security”, in this situation killing is justifiable and not even explained.

In the beginning, the policy of bridges created by General Moshe Dayan for communities to create economic interdependence meant that the Jewish population had a way. It was purchased in Arab stores, cheaper than Israeli ones. Policy abandoned in subsequent governments.

Even the peace deal, in the end, as explained by Jewish leaders, saved the state of Israel because it isolated the most dangerous threat to Israeli democracy: demography.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like the protagonist of this unsettling novel, the author is an Israeli Arab who has worked as a journalist for a liberal Israeli newspaper (Ha'aretz). When he becomes a father, he moves his wife and baby from Tel Aviv back to their home village, where life is instantly claustrophobic. At first, the noose is social, as their world shrinks from the cross-cultural cosmopolitanism of Tel Aviv, to the insular world of extended family in a small village. Then, when the Israeli Army seals the village for no apparent reason one day, it becomes literally claustrophobic.

Set around 2004, the story becomes a kind of quarantine morality play, familiar in popular culture (see, for example Stephen King's Under the Dome), but here transposed to an unfamiliar setting. As phones, electricity and water are cut off, and food becomes scare, the village first turns on the socially inferior West Bank Palestinians who hold menial jobs in the village, suspecting them as being the impetus for the Army attention. But within days the villagers begin to turn on each other, and civil authority completely breaks down, with power devolving to young thugs with guns. Contrasting with the dire situation are flashbacks to the protagonist's childhood and young adult years, showing the path that took him from the village to the big city.

Of course, the explicit theme of all this is the question of integration in Israel. Although currently comprising about 20% of the population, Arab Israelis have historically been treated as lesser citizens. The book is ultimately an exploration of the idea that no matter how much one tries to integrate or assimilate, Arabs will never be fully accepted as Israelis. The characters don't fit into the archetypes of Arab or Palestinian characters familiar to Western audiences, making it a much more interesting and nuanced read than one might expect. Worth pairing with Joe Sacco's graphic reportage Notes From Gaza, and the engrossing film Ajami.

[Sunshine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update: after finishing it, I'm rounding it out at a solid 4 stars. It gets better and better and proves its narrative construction.

I'm still reading this, so the # of stars is up for revision, but for now it's a 3-star.

The narrator is very interesting, as is the situation. An Israeli Arab who's a journalist for an Israeli paper (their "arab" guy) who gradually gets marginalized at the paper as Palestinian-Israeli relations worsen and whose Arab village eventually gets blockaded indefinitely. I don't know what happens next. He crosses between worlds: Israeli vs Palestinian/Arab, city vs village

I'm not sure whether the plot will keep a good pace, but I'll update this when I know.

As the blockade continues, it's getting pretty stressful, and is becoming not such a great relax-before-bed reading material, so I kind of shelved it a bit. Will have to figure out a way to reincorporate.

[Etha Frenkel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very disturbing book on several levels. First, the horrible, kafkesque predicament the village unexpectedly and inexplicably finds itself in. Second, the narrator/protagonist and his negative attitude to everything. If there is a natural tendency to identify and sympathize with him he systematically destroys this. This includes the grotesque picture of the Arab village which he draws. All negative. At first I was relieved that at least his immediate family came out all right but then the memory of his father's beatings and his mother's lack of love destroys this too. So all that one feels at the end is unease. Even the ending/resolution which one would like to reject feels like a solution.
I wonder if this was his intention--to create a feeling of unease. If so, he did a fine job.

[Jaana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different from the columns in Haaretz that I´ve been following for years and grew tired of. I have to admit that I read the book between the lines all the time. This is many books in one, as stated in at least another review. I also conceived it as other fates than the Palestinian. I had a philosophical problem I didn´t know of. This is a book that I needed but didn´t know it. It doesn´t seem like an important book but it is, at least for me. I haven´t been ignorant to start with so I´m startled but no - this is not an extension of the columns. It was a good, human story with more dimensions than the obvious story, from the beginning to the end. Or maybe I am imagining things.

[Zack]

This book was a good book. I thought it started a little slow but it was needed for background information and leading in. Once you got past the beginning the book was good. I could not relate to the author very well but it was interesting in the way the story was told and his thinking through the challenges that he had and the things he did. The setting was interesting and was cool to see a person's view and thinking of what it is like in his village. Overall it was an okay book.

[ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

good and necessary read in these times. as expected i felt much anguish. but sayed kashua offers a very valuable perspective and i would recommend this to anyone else trying to grasp the history of discrimination against the arab people in israel

[Claire Binkley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not officially finish this book. I'm still not officially sure how to do this properly...

[Samar Dahmash Jarrah · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one consulted the Palestinians on the Peace Process. No one cared. This is what I think this story is about.

[Arda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend of mine read this book before I did and said: “I cannot believe the way he talks about his wife. It’s humiliating. Does she even KNOW he writes these things about her? Most probably not, right? I cannot imagine her READING this stuff and choose to still BE with him!”

I was having similar thoughts while reading this seemingly autobiographical narrative. This guy is quite unlikable. He’s paranoid, needy and untrustworthy. He is low in principles and high in opportunism. Sure, sure, there are bits of him showing his “softer” side, but most of those parts have to do with his early childhood. All in all, this is the type of guy who would easily sell his soul for a piece of falafel. (And YET, this novel has a twist. It caught me by surprise and it would turn out I was mistaken in the earlier assumptions. I’m not going to say more about that in this review, lest I ruin the book for those who haven’t read it and intend to do so. But let me just say that this is not exactly the “thinly-veiled autobiography” one may think it is! The cover of the book is sneaky, sneaky.)

In terms of language, this book was a bit problematic. The narrator says “damn it” so many times I feel like I want to jot down just how many damn.it. times he repeats the same expression over and over again. I wonder which expression he's used in the original Hebrew, and begin to see that there are other expressions that start to get on my nerves, too. For example, while the words “eema” and “abba” may sound perfectly OK in Hebrew, yet hearing this thirty year-old refer to his folks in the way of “mother said” and “father did” makes the book seem archaic in a way that it probably isn't in the Hebrew version. I doubt that this is a question of translation. It is more likely that this book, in style, context and message, targets an Israeli audience.

That said, this is an enjoyable read. It is both funny and smart, and has many references to puberty, unemployment, traitors, inequality and self-doubt. These themes allow the reader to go beyond the politics and take a close look at the anxieties of new couples in an overwhelming world. The character, an Arab man living with his wife and baby girl in Israel, is stuck in the midst of the unwelcoming reality. “Ever since she was born, I’ve been worrying”, he says. Paranoia takes over this man who, while unlikable, has the world going against him. His voice personifies the need to be accepted in the world, yet he is forced to exist in an uninviting place.

This Arab man is so aware of his Arab-ness that he makes the conscious decision to leave Tel Aviv and move back to his village with his family, but he soon realizes that things aren’t going to work out for him there either. There’s “nowhere to run to anymore,” he realizes, and wonders if “a sane country, anywhere” would take him, but figures that there would be Arab xenophobia there too. This man has the willingness to let go of his ego, his principles, his freedom of expression, all of it; he is ready to adapt, all for the sake of survival. He says that he has gone as far as having “cursed God, the virgins, Paradise and myself. Especially myself, for doing everything I could to hold on to myself.” But even letting go of oneself may not be enough of a reason to be given space to survive.

This book is unsettling, and it becomes even more so when one considers that this particular author would be feeling "accepted" within the Israeli society. If this Arab man is not welcomed in Israel, who in the world would be?

“Sometimes, I can’t help feeling unspeakably sorry for them when I see how much they believe in their citizenship.”

Below, I have pasted a part of the book that I thought was beautifully written.

~*~
FROM "LET IS BE MORNING" BY SAYED KASHUA:

At the entrance to the cemetery I see the lupinus seeds vendor. I haven’t seen him for years, with his green cart, the same one he used when I was still in elementary school. Nobody knew what his real name was. Everyone just called him Thurmus, the local word for lupinus. He used to show up every day when school got out, equipped with a tape recorder that he’d position next to his big bowl of thurmus seeds, and play his Egyptian songs. Everyone made fun of Thurmus. He looked strange, and his eyes would follow you everywhere. His eyes followed the shoppers even as he was scooping up the warm thurmus seeds from the vat and filling the bowls. He never missed the bowl, even though his gaze wasn’t focused on what he was doing. He’d stare right through you, never smiling, never talking with anyone. I was scared of him at first, and I wasn’t the only one. But everyone bought thurmus from him because it really was the best.

I can see him now, standing at the entrance to the cemetery, his tape recorder playing the same songs, songs which used to be hits and nobody remembers anymore, waiting for the workers to finish the burial rites. Maybe he’ll manage to sell them some thurmus. In earlier times, he’d walk the streets all day, seeking out the crowds, the big events, pushing his green cart. His favorite sales spot was the soccer field. He’d show up not only at the Saturday games of the adult team but at all the practice sessions too, including those for the junior team.

I remember he never missed a single practice, not even of the junior team, when I was playing on it. I wasn’t exactly playing, I was signed up, and I came to every practice, always on time. I didn’t like soccer, but I treated it as another subject I had to excel at. Like math, or carpentry, or religion. The kids on the team said the only reason the coach agreed to take me was that he was afraid my father would get him fired. I could never find a partner when we were supposed to divide into pairs. The coach always had to force one of the kids to pair up with me. I’m not sure I was such a bad player, actually, but I hated those practice sessions, hated coming to the soccer field and hated the kids on the team. I didn’t want to upset my father by quitting. He always said, “Mens sana in corporate sano.” And he’d repeat it over and over again. I remember him telling me once, “Maybe you don’t run as fast as the others, maybe you don’t kick as hard as they do, but you’re smart and you should decide how the game is played.” But that’s bullshit. The best players were the ones who ran faster than everyone and kicked harder than everyone. They never invited me to play in the games that took place in the village. I was always on the bench, a backup, except I never got to replace anyone. But I had a team shirt, with the logo of a cement factory splashed across it. The factory belonged to the father of one of the kids on the team. The kids said they bet my father had had to buy me the shirt, but I didn’t take it to heart. I knew they were just jealous.

I remember that Saturday morning when the group was supposed to play its very first away game. Everyone was talking about how we’d be taking a bus to play against the Jews in a real junior league game. The coach ordered us to show up at the field at nine A.M. I got there first. The second to arrive was Thurmus with his cart. I kept my distance from him, and just went on observing him. If he comes closer, I thought, I’m out of here as fast as I can go. The coach and the minibus arrived before the rest of the team. I was the first to get on, wearing the red uniform of the team and regulation shoes. Slowly, the bus started filling up. The coach asked me to get off for a minute, said he needed to talk to me. “Bring your bag with you,” he said. The coach explained that the minibus was too small and there wasn’t room for everyone, and the cement-factory owner had decided to come along too. “Next time we’ll take you along,” he said, “and got on the bus. I managed to control myself, didn’t show a thing. I was about to explode but I didn’t say a thing. I could see the kids laughing from inside the bus, looking at me, and I knew they were talking about me, but I showed nothing. I kept it bottled up. Only when the bus drove off did I feel I couldn’t take it any more. My shoulders shook, and even though I tried hard not to cry, the tears just streamed down.

“This is for you,” I heard a voice from behind me. Thurmus was standing there with a cup in his hand. “Take it, it’s for you. Don’t cry. I’ve seen you play. You’re good. I’ve seen you.”

I look at Thurmus now, the only person who came to the funeral. I wait to catch his gaze, to see the big eyes following me. But no, his head is lowered and his big body is trembling.

[Harald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raamatu peategelane on Iisraeli araablane, kes on pärit Läänekalda lähedal asuvast araablaste külast, läks Tel Avivi ajakirjandust õppima, töötas seal mõnda aega ja siis tuli koos oma naise ja väikese lapsega tagasi kodukülla. Algul oli ta juba veits done, sest linn oli palju toredam ja külaelu oli halvemaks muutunud, aga kohe läks palju hullemaks, sest Iisraeli väed piirasid linna ümber, keerasid vee ja elektri kinni ja midagi ega kedagi linnast sisse ega välja ei lasknud.

Sayed Kashua ise on kusjuures ka palestiinlane ja iisraellane (eri Vikipeediate väitel kas Iisraeli araablane või palestiinlane või mingi Haaretzi artikli järgi ka Palestinian-Israeli, nii et noh ütleme et mõlemad) ja ajakirjanik ja pärit samast piirkonnast, kus see küla asub. Nii et ilmselgelt talle südamelähedane teema ja pigem usun, et ta teab, millest ta räägib.

Seda enam oli suur minu üllatus, kui raamatu lõpus tegid Palestiina ja Iisrael rahulepingu, mille kohaselt sai see küla Palestiina osaks, aga siis minategelane ja ta pere olid hoopis kurvad ja leinameeleolus??? Aga siis nad arutasid omavahel asju ja selgus, et nad arvasid, et tegelt Palestiina riik polnud tol hetkel üldse piisavalt demokraatlik, et nende majanduslik heaolu kukub järsult, et noorem poeg ei saa vb enam Iisraelis ülikoolis käia jne, suva sellest diskrimineerimisest Iisraeli riigis jms. Nii et selle osas andis raamatu lugemine mulle kindlasti uue perspektiivi Iisraeli-Palestiina konfliktile, samas ma ei tea, kui levinud taoline suhtumine Iisraeli araablaste ja palestiinlaste seas on ja kui palju see üldse kajastab Kashua enda arvamust (+ see, et raamat ilmus 2006, aga Kashua ise kolis Iisraelist 2014 ära, sest ta tundis, et ta pidi, nii et, noh, jah).

Iseenesest täitis raamat oma peamise eesmärgi väga hästi, aga mind häiris teose juures see, et korduvalt ja ootamatult kirjeldas minategelane traumaatilisi mälestusi, millest enamikud veel kuidagi olid okeid lugeda, aga üks oli liiga hull + oli üks väga rõve stseen, mis pani mind tundma, et ma kohe ketin. 'Ootamatult' tähendab seda, et ma olin nagu raamatu temaatikaga arvestades valmis lugema kirjeldusi selle kohta, kuidas inimesi maha lastakse vms, aga need kaks episoodi raamatust häirisid kuidagi palju rohkem ja olid väga ebameeldivad lugeda. See rõve asi oli see, et peategelane pidi käsitsi reoveetoru blokeerima, ja see teine oli pmst kirjeldus sellest, kuidas varateismeeas oli minategelane eraõpetaja ühele oma klassivennale, kellest raamatu toimumise ajaks oli saanud gängijuht, ja nende vahel toimus seksuaalseid tegevusi, millest üks oli borderline vägistamine. Iseenesest aus, elus toimub traumaatilisi ja rõvedaid asju ja nendest tulebki rääkida, aga nagu... ma ei tea, ma lihtsalt ootasin selles raamatus hoopis teist tüüpi pahasid asju näha ja need teemad olid kuidagi liiga eemaletõukavad. Aga asi on lihtsalt mu maitses, Kashua stiil on kohati väga naturalistlik ja mulle ei istunud väga ta stiil.

[Mariana Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came to me just at the right time. The novel is set at around the time of the second intifada in a Palestinian village inside Israel. The protagonist has just come back from the big city where he lived with his wife and baby daughter. But as soon as he moves back to his birthplace, the village is cut out from the outside world. Not only the can't get out , but also they have no water nor electricity.

Kashua's makes a vivid portrait of an Arab village inside Israel. The people there are mostly satisfied living in Israel , so at first, their reaction to the blockage is disbelief. On the other hand, once 3 people are killed by the army because they tried to get over it , the city mourns them as if they were "shahids". This shows, how precarious the situation of the Palestinian citizens is.

The author also tackles the problem of crime in Arabic villages, and how the state doesn't intervene in this matter, letting things break loose.

As the novel develops, the anguish of the characters just grows. There is garbage everywhere and an unsolved sewage problem, which lets the air stinky. Then, the inhabitants ask themselves what might be the problem. Is there a terrorist cell inside the village? In a desperate attempt of ending the blockage, they decide to hand in the illegal workers from the West Bank to the army, but they shoot at them.

In short, Kashua creates a completely believable story. Adding up to that, we have witty jokes that makes the experience of reading it even more enjoyable.

The ending is, however, the best part of the it. It is as unpredictable as it is believable given how the situation of the conflict developed over the years. It was just perfect, and again shows how Israeli Arabs live on a tight rope, of not being considered full-citizens of neither Israel nor Palestine.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: this book is NOT a feel good read. It may make you feel uncomfortable. I believe this is done intentionally, in order to "drop you in the mind and the shoes of the narrarator".

Complex, and often unheard story of Arab Israeli life and the struggles that come with it. This well crafted book by Kashua touched on incredibly difficult subjects, from internal-conflict and self-doubt, to persecution, from family dynamics and arranged marriages, to the daily banalities of life. Let It Be Morning was a page turner, a nail biter, and had me laughing and crying at the same time. The world is a better place for having people like Kashua share his perspective and his incredible gift for writing with us. To be honest, even though this is a novel, I never really grasped just how bad the situation was/is for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. This book helps put things into perspective and gives me a deeper appreciation for the insane living conditions and hazards most of their communities had to, or still have to, endure today.

All that being said, if I could offer some constructive criticism, certain parts of the book could have been put more delicately or with more finesse (writing skill). There is a blurry and difficult line between 'shock for effect' and well delivered prose, and I think a bit too much of this novel errs on the end of shock (at least for my taste/opinion). Now given this is an English translation from Hebrew, 5 stars- very impressive.

(In some ways, this book reminded me of "I'll Sell You a Dog", as it relates to how the daily banalities of life are described, imperfection, internal conflict, and struggle.)

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because one of my clients adapted it as a film. I understand that the film is quite good and has been accepted as an official selection at Cannes, so I am looking forward to seeing it.

The book is not great literature, but it has good characters and an interesting political perspective. My favorite thing about it was seeing it as a modern retelling of the story of Job. A good man who has always done the right thing and has had some success suddenly sees everything going horribly wrong in his life. He loses his job. His town is blockaded by troops. Gangs take over his town. Innocent people are killed. He is soaked in raw sewage. It just gets worse and worse. And then when things seem to get better, it gets worse again at the end. It seems that no matter how hard he tries he is doomed without apparent reason or justice to suffer more and then to suffer more after that. But he never gives up. He doesn't turn to religion or crime. He remains true to himself and his family, and somehow we feel sure that he will muddle through.

It's interesting to see how the book portrays the point of view of Israeli Arabs. It's very much a Booker T. Washington perspective - people who try hard and sometimes manage to bring themselves up in the world in the face of discrimination, they struggle and succeed against all odds, finding ways to enjoy some of the fruits of the rich society around them, but then they become apologists for its faults. I don't know. It's depressing. Why can't we all just get along?

[Andrej Beritski · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Da Ward es morgen“ von Sayed Kashuah ist ein eindrucksvolles Werk, das die Lebensrealität israelischer Araber mit all ihren Facetten beleuchtet. Der Autor wechselt gekonnt zwischen Gegenwart und erinnernder Vergangenheit und schafft so eine vielschichtige Erzählung, die den Leser in die Gedankenwelt seiner Protagonisten eintauchen lässt.

Der Schreibstil ist angenehm und flüssig, was das Lesen zu einem wahren Vergnügen macht. Kashuah bietet wertvolle Einblicke in das Alltagsleben der israelischen Araber und vermittelt ein tiefes Verständnis für deren Gefühlszustände und Denkweisen. Besonders bemerkenswert ist die Darstellung der Ungewissheit, mit der viele dieser Menschen leben, sowie die Einsicht, dass nicht jeder israelische Araber eine palästinensische Regierung wünscht.

Das Buch ist eine gelungene Mischung aus Spannung, Humor und Ernsthaftigkeit. Kashuah bringt die Leser zum Nachdenken und schafft es gleichzeitig, mit seinem Humor eine heitere Note in die ernsten Themen einzuflechten. Insgesamt ist „Da Ward es morgen“ ein Werk, das sowohl unterhält als auch zum Reflektieren anregt, und damit eine bereichernde Lektüre darstellt.

[M- · Rating 2 out of 5]

Je crois que j'aurais préféré lire ce récit sous la forme d'un reportage au long cours plutôt qu'une œuvre de fiction, parce que ça permettrait de ne garder que le meilleur : une réflexion sur la position ambivalente des Arabes israéliens, population invisibilisée naviguant entre une image de collaborateurs pour les Palestiniens et celle de cellules terroristes dormantes pour les Israéliens.
L'expérience sensible du siège du village est racontée à travers le filtre de la misanthropie de l'auteur. La forme journalistique lui aurait sûrement évité de se laisser aller à un constant agacement envers ses proches et une condescendance à peine voilée envers son épouse, dont il ne dit pas une seule chose positive de tout le roman. L'impuissance et sentiment d'injustice de l'auteur s'expriment principalement par des séries questions rhétoriques qui ponctuent le roman et rendent le récit assez pauvre et répétitif.