A Compass for the Sunflower

by Liana Badr

"This is the story of Jinan, a child growing up on the West Bank, a teenager studying in Amman, a worker in the refugee camps around Amman and Beirut. It is the story of a young woman in the midst of war - embattled, screaming with the child in pain, living, moment by moment, the tension and the terror of the plane hijack led by her loved cousin Amer, as it dominates the world's media.

Liana Badr's intense and poetic novel powerfully conveys the sense of lives fragmented, families and friendships blown asunder by foreign occupation, exile and war; and the struggle of a young woman to find meaning and coherence in her own life and the life of her people."

130 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1990

Reviews

[Jacob Heartstone · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a story about the trauma war and displacement generated in the Palestinian people, personified by the main character, Jinan, who tells her life story and how she ended up living and working in a refugee camp in Amman and then later on in Beirut.

While being a moving story in and of itself, the writing was much too disjointed and diffuse to make for an enjoyable read. There's no clear timeline at any point in the novel, and the chapters as well as the events detailed within these chapters appear miscellaneously and often without a clear structure, leading to a lot of confusion during the reading process.

Additionally, most of the characters (with the possible exception of the main character) appear flat and unidimensional and their purpose in the book is not always made clear.

[Maeyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jordan