“What we produce is so indigenous to us – our song, our dance, our stories – it is a power they do not have…”
Susan Abulhawa is the international best-selling author of the novel Mornings in Jenin. She is the daughter of refugees of the 1967 Six-Day War. Originally from Jabal al Tur in Jerusalem, Abulhawa’s family relocated several times and finally settled in Kuwait, where she was born in 1970.
Abulhawa spent three years of her childhood in the Dar El-Tifil El-Arabi orphanage in East Jerusalem until finally, at age 13, she relocated to the United States. She later studied biology at the University of South Carolina and obtained a Master’s Degree in Neuroscience.
Abulhawa discovered her passion for writing in her 30s, following life-changing visits to Palestine in the aftermath of the Jenin massacre. Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury, 2010) is her first novel, and was originally published under the title The Scar of David. It was later renamed to Mornings in Jenin to better capture the essence of the story.
Abulhawa also is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine (PFP), a non-profit organization established in 2001 to uphold the Right to Play for Palestinian children both within Palestine and Lebanon. In 2002, PFP saw the creation of its first playground and since has built several more in cities including Bethlehem, Hebron, and Nablus.
She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her daughter.
WEBSITE: http://morningsinjenin.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/sjabulhawa
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/susan.abulhawa
