HAYATI: My Life--A Novel.

• Author: Han, Carolyn
• Position: Book Reviews

Miriam Cooke. HAYATI: My Life--A Novel. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000. 152 pages. Hardcover $22.95.

Hayati or "my life," an endearment in Arabic, uses artful prose to create stories shaped by the complexities of human interaction giving readers insights into lives of Palestinians. The novel--a montage--is written in chapters that vary from a single paragraph to several pages. Within the framework are three generations of strong women made even stronger by events they experience. However, the opposite is true for the men. Caught in continuous Israeli oppression, war, and violence their masculinity is traumatized.

The individual stories are superimposed one on the other piecing together the past and showing why present-day tensions continue to exist. What holds readers to the novel are the first person narratives connected by personal struggle and grief. Their haunting voices tell stories revealing the lack of compassion and empathy Israelis and the world hold toward Palestinians. Readers need in-depth knowledge of the Middle East and especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts/wars/ to fully understand and appreciate the novel.

Hayati opens with Assia telephoning from Kuwait in 1990, speaking to her daughter in Jerusalem. She tells Maryam, "Pray for us" (p. 3). We then hear from Maryam in 1960 overlooking the Mount of Olives, when the twelve-year-old asks her mother to help with a homework assignment. Her mother does not want to explain the terrible events of the last fifty years--it is too painful.

However, Maryam soon learns of the horrors Palestinians have endured. Her grandparents once entertained poets and artists in their salon, discussing the merits of T. S. Eliot. But later, these and other well-educated, refined people suffer because of the British Mandate. "Everybody knew that the British were ruthless" (p. 74). Palestinian homes destroyed. Palestinians displaced. Her grandfather killed. Grandmother imprisoned.

Supporters of the resistance, Assia and Basil flee the massacre of Deir Yassin and an infant son is killed in the crossfire. Usama is shot dead in Basil's arms. Death forces a wedge between his parents. Basil, although an accomplished engineer, cannot find work. "The vibrant, brilliant man I married had changed beyond recognition" (p. 17). "Whereas Usama's death had marked my face, it had branded itself on the soul of his father" (p.17).

Palestinian men leave their homeland and journey to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq...