Velvet: A Novel
Winner of The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature
Winner of the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation
A novel of enormous power and great beauty, in which a Palestinian woman raised in a refugee camp learns to sew which helps her to construct a life
Hawwa is a child of the grinding hardship of a Palestinian refugee camp. She has had to survive the camp itself, as well as the humiliation and destruction of an abusive family. But now, in her middle years something most unexpected has happened: she has fallen in love.
Velvet unfolds over a day in Hawwa’s life, as she makes plans for a new beginning. She sifts through her memories: stories of her family, her childhood, and her beloved mentor, Sitt Qamar, who among other gifts, taught her to sew, and most importantly, taught her to value herself.
"This is a deeply human book. . . . a masterwork." –Omar El Akkad, LitHub
“Huzama Habayeb’s novel is an intense and vivid story of one woman’s life in a Palestinian refugee camp, told with sensitivity to the sensuous but tragic world of its heroine but above all to her almost heroic defiance of reality. On one level, the novel is a study of the claustrophobia of poverty and oppression, of daily lives shorn of all tenderness, and of the stranglehold of family and patriarchy. Throughout it all, however, there remain dreams of individual fulfilment and the possibility of love and escape, turning the novel into a celebration of the triumph of the imagination over the mundane. The richness of the Arabic original is captured by Kay Heikkinen in a translation that faithfully adheres to its elegance without undue artifice and without losing the deeply tragic tenor of its events.” ―Judges' comments, Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize
“As sensuous, smooth, and strong as the fabric that gives the novel its title.” ―Humphrey Davies, translator of The Yacoubian Building
"Every moment in this book is so fully lived as to be magnetic…the novel should not be missed, in Arabic or in English, for its sentences crammed to the brim with life in a refugee camp, for its sophisticated picking apart of narrative tropes about motherhood and social mobility, and for the rollercoaster-like pleasure of Hawwa’s ups and downs.”―M. Lynx Qualey, Words Without Borders
“An original voice who brings vividly to life Palestinian camps with extraordinary beauty and lyricism.”―Tahia Abdel Nasser, The American University in Cairo
"Passionate....bursting with sensory detail."―The National
"Rich in language and metaphor"―The New Arab
“Gives shape to a story of defiance and resilience”―Middle East Monitor
“Extraordinarily vivid. . . .This is a tale of women and men broken by refugee life, and the fate of those few who dare to persist in searching for happiness. . . . Human misery permeates the novel, but that doesn’t keep one from frantically turning the pages to follow the compelling story of Hawwa ― an extremely memorable character.”―The Jordan Times
"Intensely poignant. . . . Depicting the highs and lows of modern womanhood, as well as the special strength that comes from an arduous life, Habayeb weaves a heart-wrenching story that springs from the sorrow of a young girl. Hawwa searches for meaning in the love and grief that surround her. Through the years, we witness Hawwa’s quiet strength persevere as she tries to stitch her family’s life back together. Equal parts touching and tragic, this novel gives an intimate view of love and loss inside of a tumultuous world."―AramcoWorld
