Before the Queen Falls Asleep
*As featured as an editor's pick on Radio Four's OPEN BOOK*
*One of the Guardian's books to look out for in 2024*
"An immersive feminist novel that meshes the personal and political to moving effect" Preti Taneja, Financial Times
"A brilliant novel of the Palestinian diaspora. Funny and gritty, and bursting with life and humour" Ahdaf Soueif, Guardian
Born a girl to parents who expected a boy, Jihad grows up treated like the eldest son, wearing boy's clothing and sharing the financial burden of head of the household with her father.
Now middle-aged, each night Jihad tells her daughter a story from her life. As Maleka prepares to leave home to attend university abroad, her mother revisits the past of their Palestinian family, tenderly describing their life in exile in Kuwait and her own experiences of love and loss as she grows up.
Huzama Habayeb weaves a richly observed and affectionate portrait of a Palestinian family displaced from their homeland, exploring with humour and poise the love and betrayal that pursues Jihad and her family from Kuwait to Jordan to Dubai. This is a novel whose words will resound long after you finish the final page.
Translated from the Arabic by Kay Heikkinen
Reviews
A bittersweet love-letter of a book by the celebrated Palestinian writer Huzama Habayeb. Part confession, part inheritance, it is an immersive feminist novel that meshes the personal and political to moving effect - Preti Taneja ― Financial Times
An affecting portrait of one displaced family's inescapable relationship with the past . . . a layered exploration of memory, exile and survival - Guardian
Habayeb leaves her readers hanging on every word . . . Before the Queen Falls Asleep is a slowburner, yet the burn is hot and leaves a lasting impact . . . Its English translation has come at a time of utmost importance - Skinny
A brilliant novel of the Palestinian diaspora. Funny and gritty, and bursting with life and humour. - Ahdaf Soueif
What a mother sacrifices for her child is immeasurable, but Palestinian writer Huzama Habayeb does a brilliant job at conveying such sacrifices . . . This moving novel highlights the hardships that displaced families endure, and the fight for a better life and the love they share. - The Herald
Deftly translated from the Arabic by Kay Heikkinen, this is an absorbing novel about about the Palestinian diaspora . . . Memorable - Sunday Post
Huzama Habayeb describes many worlds within one world. She weaves the East and the West within the Middle East, and explores the feeling of living in exile even when at home. She cares for the lives of children and women, always filled with difficulties and great hopes, in a compassionate and magical language. While searching for a solution in despair, she holds up a new mirror to the world, a mirror that everyone is invited to look at and question themselves - Burhan Sönmez
