Christina

Atef Abu Saif

During the Israeli attack on the Gaza strip in 2009, Christina vanishes, after a car with international number plates takes her outside the camp. Her disappearance gives rise to many questions that the novel attempts to answer. Christina had begun life as "Fidda", a young girl from Jaffa who is forced to leave her city to seek treatment for an illness in London, just one year before the "Nakba" - the establishment of Israel in 1948. She is accompanied by an English journalist, a friend of her father's, and after the Nakba, when her return to her stricken country and city becomes impossible, he changes her name and registers her as his daughter. However, after his death, when Christina is in her first year at university, his sisters decide to get rid of the Arab girl and send her to Gaza to search for her family. 

Publisher

Al Ahlia

Nomination

2018 Longlist