Anna

“I think in saying 'loved each other,' Baldwin doesn't just mean the living. To survive by loving each other means to love our ancestors too. To know their pain, struggles, and joys. It means to love our collective memory, who we are, where we come from..”
― Susan Abulhawa, Against the Loveless World

“I colonized the colonizer’s space of authority. I made myself free in chains and held that courtroom captive to my freedom.”
― Susan Abulhawa, Against the Loveless World

“This was what it meant to be exiled and disinherited—to straddle closed borders, never whole anywhere.”
― Susan Abulhawa, Against the Loveless World

“It amazed me to see how quickly they got comfortable in the new apartment and settled into a routine, as if their lives had simply been excised and replaced elsewhere, intact, with just a dusting of grief they shook off before returning to the business of living. Maybe it was easier because the trauma of forced displacement was already well-known to them, and they understood how idleness and purposelessness could dull the mind, droop the eyelids, and seep too much sleep and despair into the day. They were experienced refugees, better equipped to handle recurring generational trauma.”
― Susan Abulhawa, Against the Loveless World