Out of it

Gaza is being bombed. Rashid--an unemployed twenty-seven-year-old, who has stayed up smoking grass and watching it happen--wakes the next day to the news he has been desperate for: He's won a scholarship to study in London. He will leave this place where his mother pickles vegetables and feuds with the neighbors; where his intellectual, wheelchair-bound brother works on a history of their imperiled country. Meanwhile, Rashid's twin sister, Iman, incensed by the atrocities and inaction around her, has also been up all night, in a meeting that proved yet another disappointment. Drawn to another form of resistance, she finds herself being followed by an unknown fighter. Written with extraordinary humanity and humor, and moving between Gaza, London, and the Gulf, Out of It follows the lives of Rashid and Iman as they try to forge paths for themselves in the midst of occupation, religious fundamentalism, and the growing divide between Palestinian factions. It is a novel that captures the frustrations and energies of the modern Arab world, and redefines Palestine and its people.