A Lake Beyond the Wind

by يحيى يخلف, Yahya Yakhlif

This series is designed to bring to North American readers the once-unheard voices of writers who have achieved wide acclaim at home, but are not recognized beyond the borders of their native lands. With special emphasis on women writers, Interlink's Emerging Voices series publishes the best of the world's contemporary literature in translation or original English.A novel about the most catastrophic year in Palestinian history. Yakhlif tenderly gathers all the town folk, the soldiers of the beleaguered army, the animals and the natural world into his tale, which makes it all the more powerful a lament for a world that is no more.

Genres: Fiction, Middle East, Literature, Historical Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

يحيى يخلف ولد في سمخ (قرية بالقرب من طبريا) في فلسطين عام 1944.

عمل أميناً عاماً لاتحاد الكتاب والصحفيين الفلسطينيين.

عضو جمعية القصة والرواية.
شغل منصب وزير الثقافة والإعلام في السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية
ورئيس المجلس الأعلى للتربية والثقافة في منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
إنتخبته مؤخراً لجنة الإعلام والثقافة والشؤون الفكرية المنبثقة عن المؤتمر العام السادس لحركة فتح رئيساً لها

مؤلفاته:
1-المهرة- قصص- بغداد 1973- ط2- بيروت 1981.
2-نجران تحت الصفر- رواية- بيروت 1977.
3-نورما ورجل الثلج- قصص- بيروت 1978.
4-ساق القصب- قصة للأطفال- بيروت 1981.
5-تفاح المجانين- رواية- بيروت 1982.
6-نشيد الحياة- رواية- بيروت 1983.
7-تلك المرأة الوردة.
8-بحيرة وراء الريح- رواية- 1993.
9 - نهر يستحم في البحر
10- نشيد الحياة
11- رواية :ماء السماء

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fine and revealing novel provides a view of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict from a Palestinian perspective. Set mostly in a town on the south shore of the Sea of Galilee on the border with Jordan, it introduces readers to a cast of characters ranging from peasants to business owners to landed property owners, all of whom in the closing chapters of the novel are driven from their homes by advancing Jewish armies. The novel captures long established social relationships and the rhythms of daily life, weather, wildlife, landscapes, so that the reader is touched by the loss of all that has been experienced as "home" by these people we have come to know. It is a recollection of a time and place tinged with nostalgia.

Several story lines are woven together, so that different characters take turns at center stage. A boy buys a bullet-proof vest from a departing British soldier, which then passes through several hands as the novel progresses. A widower with a small estate lives with a small household staff and spends a harrowing night in a disabled car being driven by another man, a character who later in the novel finds an abandoned baby.

A volunteer soldier from Baghdad comes to Palestine to fight alongside the Palestinians and befriends another young soldier from Aleppo, who has fallen in love with a young woman he has met by chance in Damascus. Most moving are the accounts of the battles and descriptions of the flood of refugees. The tone of loss and defeat at the end of the novel is in keeping with how this period of Palestinian history is remembered - as a catastrophe. Though sometimes a little flat, the translation from Arabic is serviceable, and it's easy to become absorbed into the daily lives of the characters. The closing chapters are gripping.

[Editanainggolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ini kisah perang Arab - Israel, tahun 1940-an.
Namun bukan hanya 2 negara ini yang bertikai, ada negara-negara di Timur Tengah lainnya, seperti Palestina juga.

Jadi kisah ini terbagi 2,
Masyarakat Bangsa Arab yang berperang dengan Israel dan relawan Arab yang membantu Palestina melawan Israel.

Sebagaimana halnya perang, penderitaan dan kehilangan terjadi, apalagi bagi pihak yang kalah.

Oh, God bless the world, peace on earth!!!

[Hasanuddin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kisah seorang sukarelawan asal Iraq yang turut membantu perjuangan rakyat Palestina melawan Israel. Pada awal membaca buku ini sempat bingung karena banyaknya tokoh yang diceritakan mendetail. Sehingga sempat mengira-ngira yang manakah pejuang asal Iraq yang dimaksud dalam cover buku ini.

Penulis memaparkan cerita dengan poros kota Samakh sebagai main setting. Kota tetangga Tiberias ini sebenarnya sangat jauh dari titik awal konflik Palestina-Isreal yang saat itu terpusat di Yerusalem. Namun seiring kekalahan legiun Arab yang dibantu sukarelawan dari berbagai penjuru Timur Tengah, membuat kota Samakh tak luput dari konflik.

Persenjataan yang seadanya, ketidaksiapan tentara mengahdapi konflik dan ketidakjujuran komandan berbaur dengan benturan perang, cinta dan kesedihan pengungsi.Perlahan tapi pasti, Israel yang solid berhasil memukul mundur legiun Arab yang penuh dengan konflik kepentingan.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book takes the centerpiece of the Palestinian tragedy -- the Nakba, or catastrophe, that was the founding of the state of Israel and destruction of Palestinian society -- and renders it into a mildly sentimental tale of some emotional war buddies. Hemingway-esque in both its focus on male characters and echoing descriptions of natural places, Yakhlif also chose (rather oddly I thought) to focus on two characters who came from outside of Palestine to join their lots with the noble cause for someone else's homeland.
It is these characters -- one man from Iraq and another from Lebanon -- who are actually more developed than the various Palestinians who populate the village at the center of the story, Samakh. I would've liked to know more about the villagers and Samakh, but felt like Yakhlif only let us view snitches of the beautiful village on the lake from behind a curtain of the love and camraderie felt between the main characters.

[Menas AbuAlhalawa · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية رائعة جداً؛ مضحكة, مبكية, حالمة, وبنفس الوقت واقعية, تغذّي ذاك الفضول لمعرفة كيف كانت الحياة الطبيعية في فلسطين يوم كانت هي وأهلها لا زالوا مكرّمين, ترى في شخصيّاتها الفلسطيني الكريم, والفلسطيني
.البخيل, والفلسطيني الولد, والفلسطيني الثائر, والفلسطيني المضياف, وأهم من ذلك كلّه العربي الأخ..
في هذه الرواية وجه آخر لفلسطين
أوصي بها..جميلة ببساطتها