The Stone House

by Yara Hawari

The year is 1968. The recent Arab defeat in the Naksa has led to the loss of all of historic Palestine. In the midst of violent political upheaval, Mahmoud, a young Palestinian boy living in the Galilee, embarks on a school trip to visit the West Bank for the first time.

For Mahmoud, his mother and his grandmother, the journey sets off a flood of memories, tracing moments that bond three generations together. How do these personal experiences become collective history? Why do some feel guilty for surviving war? Is it strange to long for a time never lived?

In this groundbreaking novella, Yara Hawari harnesses the enduring power of memory in defiance of the constrictions on Palestinian life. Against a system bent on the erasure of their people, the family’s perseverance is unbroken in the decades-long struggle for their stone house.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Literature, Historical

96 pages, Paperback

Published December 9, 2021

Reviews

[Momal Rizvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this for a class and am so grateful to have the opportunity to read literature that centers palestinian story telling and knowledge production during my time in undergrad. hawari’s story of her ancestors brings the nakba to life across generations and shows the ways in trauma from zionist colonialism and violence is intergenerational. a great and short read if you are interested in learning more about the nakba through palestinian hakawati

[Aisha (thatothernigeriangirl) · Rating 4 out of 5]

No matter how many Palestinian stories I read, the experiences are just so so different. Ugh! Palestinians are some of the most resilient people and the love they have for their lands and houses is just so beautiful. The Stone House focuses on the experiences of Palestinians who were given the Isreali citizenship during its creation in 1948 — and the kind of sinister conditions they still have to live in.
We also get to see narrations from before the Nakba, when British occupied Palestine and even back when the Ottomans occupied it. A very short book but filled with such heart-wrenching real-life Palestinian stories. I hope Hawari writes more books 👏🏾

[Marcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an eloquent, powerful, and yet quiet novel. The subtlety with which Hawari conveys the devastating consequences of the Palestinian Nakba is weighty. It's poetic. Her characters are finely drawn and deeply compelling. I love the way she weaves together the various family members and their relationship to their home in northern Palestine; how she illustrates the textures of Israeli's ongoing, incremental genocidal apartheid practices from before 1948. The book will leave you with a gaping hole in your heart.

[Kai Hawkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book to personify post-Nakba Palestine, and a great entry point for anyone who wants to look at Palestinian resistance. The narrative, following three generations of Palestinians, allows its readers to see how the Zionist narrative of permanence was manufactured and manipulated. Storytelling is an act of resistance, and this novella is a great window into this.

However, the book falters with some mediocre writing styles and an attempt (?) at stream-of-consciousness. The short nature of the book means it is extremely accessible, but it suffers by not delving into details of the characters' lives. There is almost a great interaction of what it means to be Bedouin, and how Orientalist ideology homogenized the Arab populations into one mono-cultural group, but it doesn't expand on this. The existence of the Stone House itself is a key point of this: the Bedouins abandoned their lifestyle of living nomadically to build a house in the face of British colonialism, but the book doesn't elaborate on what it means to change a lifestyle because of outside imperialist forces.

All in all, though, it is still an easy read and a good book, 3.5/5, I would certainly suggest anyone read this.

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rep: Palestinian cast & setting

[Libby Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a heavy and good read. I love how you can see each persons stories and how they relate in each chapter. Really recommend

[Sabiha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brought up so many emotions for me. The intertwining stories following all three were simply beautiful and heartbreaking.

[Maeva ( maevareadsbooks_ ) · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌍 🇵🇸 Read the World

I am so happy I chose this book randomly - in my goal to read more international from this year - in a little independent library in Gent (BE) while I was in town a month ago.

I had no political & cultural knowledge about this country and to be honest, I don’t follow the news when they involve war because it’s too sad for me. So I didn’t know much about what has been going on there, and especially the reasons of the “conflicts”.

But now I have a better understanding of what has been going on and is still going on in this part of the world.

The three different points of view from Mahmoud the son (father of the author Yara), his mother Dheeba and his grandmother Hamda, telling what has happened at different times of the 20th century with their own feelings and perceptions was really moving, I cannot imagine what it’s like having to run away from your own home and country to try to stay alive and it enlightened the courage and strength that women there have had to protect their own lives, but also their family, and the traumatic scars it must leave also to the youngest ones.

I think I have understood by far better what has happened for the past decades in the country by reading this book than the few articles I read online beforehand.

It’s a short book, and it’s well written, easy to read. I would really recommend it to anyone who is willing to know more or understand more of the stakes as it’s more of a nonfiction than a fiction.

[Mansi V · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn't by choice that they had ended up in a village that wasn't their own. And neither was it by choice that they had nowhere to live but in the homes of those who had been killed or exiled several decades before. It was a cruel irony , and in the end, they were all forced to live with ghosts of the past

Hawari draws on her family's experiences to create an interesting and informative novella which is a great short and easy introduction to anyone who wants to read more on Palestine. However, as a book itself, I found the sheer amount of information that was put into such little pages made it sometimes read more like non-fiction than a novella, which perhaps makes sense because of the autobiographical nature of the book. I also think a lot of the emotion of the book was created more from the events of the book rather than the writing. I think the writing might have shone more in a longer book, which would have also helped to develop the story as the final part did feel a bit rushed.

[Hana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really short but beautifully written account of Yara Hawari’s own family history. It’s almost more of an essay than a novella: it doesn’t really have a ‘plot’ so much as it recounts the personal experiences of her father, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

It’s yet another example of individual lived experiences under the occupation, that really impressively manages to evoke the love Palestinians have for their land and homes, as well as intergenerational trauma and memories.

CW: ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, military occupation, death, death of a loved one, grief

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, personal. Weaves stories of unspeakable tragedy with resilience of family and enduring hope that I found myself thinking of well after I had finished the book. Uplifting. Short enough I was able to read in a few sittings.

I will recommend this to all my friends who love to read.

[Josh D'Addario · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best new books I've read in awhile. Incredibly blending lines between historical truth-telling, and the artistic licence of 'fiction' that comes with the adaptation of oral history.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

1968, young Mahmoud is about to embark on an historic school trip to the West Bank, setting off the memories of his mother and grandmother.

This is an interesting, if very brief, exploration of the multi-generational and inherited trauma within one family. I really liked that this looked at three generations’ differing experiences and perspectives of the Nakba, including Mahmoud who was born after, but has grown up hearing about it and all that was lost and how that has shaped him. I also particularly appreciated the Bedouin perspective - it’s not one that I seem to come across much.

However, what is an important story (always, but especially right now) was completely let down by the frankly painful writing. All three POVs (Mahmoud, his mother and his grandmother, so very different people) had the exact same voice and it very much felt like a high school writing project. I persevered because at 91 pages, the novel (novella?) is short enough to push through, but as a reader to whom writing really matters, I cannot honestly say that it was really worth doing so.

An interesting but unfortunately painfully-written story of collective memory and the trauma of the Nakba across three generations of one family.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Palestinian boy sets off on a school trip in 1968, reflecting on his experience of having known life only under the Israeli occupation. His mother, waving him off, reflects on her experience of surviving the horrors of the 1948 Catastrophe, when Palestine was abandoned by the British and occupied by Israelis. She visits her mother, who recalls the withdrawal of Ottoman occupation, and the succeeding British and Israeli occupations.

This fictionalised history of the author's family was published in 2021, and the cautiously optimistic epilogue is the more poignant being read post the 7/10/23 Hamas-led attack and the ongoing Israeli reprisals.

[Helena Chaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first novel I have ever read on the Palestinian tragedy and massacre of its land and people. To say it was revolutionary is merely not a fit enough word to describe its liberating effects on my mind, body, and soul. It is truly one of the most beautiful pieces of work I have ever read.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautiful and moving stories I’ve read this year. The author’s weaving of her family’s story with that of Palestine’s rich and painful history in less than a hundred pages is honestly magical. I’m more grateful than ever for Palestinian movies, we just never forget, we must not stop fighting. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 🇵🇸

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

These very important family stories fell a little flat in the format of a novella. It might have been better as a memoir, perhaps told from Yara’s point of view as she learned these stories from her relatives.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

i expected nothing less from dr yara hawari, i can’t wait to buy a hard copy

[Abby Sharkis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my Palestine class and really enjoyed it. Ideally I would have made it a little longer but I learned a lot about pre 1948 Palestine and would definitely recommend it.

[Jess]

Impossibly beautiful and heartachingly sad. A story full of hope and loss and resistance.

[Liv Cawgurl · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. It feels quite impossible to give a book like this a rating, but for how compelling and powerful the story is, the writing felt very flat.

[Joe Skilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

💔

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

this made me so sad

[Pam Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply personal memoir about family strength and hope in over turning huge loss of family pride, property and nationhood

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the formation of the modern Israeli state, Palestinians have been treated by that government as at best an inconvenience and at worst as pests to be controlled through apartheid arrangements, and all because they have the audacity to want to exist on their own homeland. This story captures the dispossession and struggle to retain identity following the Nakba, the systematic violence, the agenda-driven over-policing, the deliberate indoctrination of both Israeli and Palestinian children in the education system. But it also chronicles the resilience and persistence of the Palestinian identity.

[Marlis Ppt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking

[Laiqah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short and simple story about the intergenerational impact of the Nakba ‘Catastrophe’. Based on oral histories collected from her own family, Hawari presents the experience of living under ruthless and unrelenting occupation through the perspective of her father, grandmother and great-grandmother.

The intimate storytelling aptly captures intergenerational trauma; the psychological effects of how monumental events and severe restrictive environments are absorbed, and then passed on to the next generation. She also conveys the difficulty in recounting memories, and crucial ties to land, house and home.

This is an easy entry into modern Palestinian writing, suitable for everyone, but especially young readers.

You can read more of my reviews here: https://www.instagram.com/neverreading/

[Razan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“… war cared for neither mourning nor ceremony. It was said that few cried during the Catastrophe - there had simply been no time.”

The author provides a fictionalised account of her father, grandmother & great-grandmother’s pre/post Nakba experiences, emphasising the importance of oral history in preserving the Palestinian narrative.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A painful, beautiful, important story. Free Palestine, always and forever.

It was an honour to read this book and explore the story through three generations of family resisting occupation. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to develop a historical understanding of the struggles of Palestinians.