Touch - Softcover

Celebrated young Palestinian writer Shibli makes her American debut with an exquisite, powerful novella that transports readers to her West Bank homeland... Though focused on the finest details - flakes of rust against skin, the softness of grass - Shibli takes readers to the center of a family and a culture, using the same careful, dispassionate observation to report everyday events like the father's shaving as she does to depict the death of a sibling in area violence. Like a great volume of poetry, Shibli's first novel (her second is forthcoming from Clockroot) has rhythm and unexpected momentum, and cries for re-reading. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Touch centers on a girl, the youngest of nine sisters in a Palestinian family. In the singular world of this novella, this young womans everyday experiences resonate until they have become as weighty as any national tragedy. The smallest sensations compel, the events of history only lurk at the edges--the question of Palestine, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. In a language that feels at once natural and alienated, Shibli breaks with the traditions of modern Arabic fiction, creating a work that has been and will continue to be hailed across literatures. Here every ordinary word, ordinary action is a small stone dropped into water: of inevitable consequence. We find ourselves mesmerized one quiet ripple at a time.