For obvious reasons the only novels that made sense to me this year were novels by Palestinian writers like Adania Shibli, Selma Dabbagh and Isabella Hammad. Ibtisam Azem is another writer I’m adding to this list as her novel The Book of Disappearance (superbly translated by Sinan Antoon), is another future classic and posits the question: What if all Palestinians vanish from their homeland overnight? A liberal Jewish journalist, Ariel, tries to find out partly by using his extensive contacts and partly by reading his missing Palestinian friend’s journal. Ariel’s quest suddenly runs up against the inconvenient truth that maybe all his preconceptions and assumptions about the ‘Palestinian question’ and the history of Tel Aviv/Jaffa aren’t quite as liberal as he thought. Alaa’s journals a challenge, “The Jaffa I grew up in was full of fear, poverty, ignorance and racism”, but Ariel thinks the past is holding Alaa back (and by implication every other Palestinian) which elicits the reply that, “Even if we were the most backward people in the world that doesn’t give you the right to kill us and expel us”. Journal and modern-day quest clashing, provoking and pointing to the fact that Ariel’s Tel Aviv is very different from Alaa’s Jaffa, the ghosts of the dead and disappeared are present, never letting the bloody past rest in peace. And as the past and present continue to collide Ariel’s search leads him further and further into the Israeli labyrinth where Arabs and Palestinians are the enemy within to be expunged and disappeared, Ariel’s journalistic impulses faltering in a new reality he’s happy to accept. Post Nakba, pre new Nakba, The Book of Disappearance is a mysterious, edgy, superbly written novel. Totally recommended.

The Book of Disappearance

– Ibtisam Azem (translated by Sinan Antoon) – publ. by And Other Stories £14.99

Steven Long