A review by marcymurli
Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat

4.0

A beautiful, snapshot of the life of a young woman named Philistia who works in a Nabuls hammam. Bsharat's narration drops the reader into a moment in Philistia's life and then just as quickly plucked out. The writing is at once lyrical and sparse. Through her narration, dream sequences, and letters to her father, who is in an Israeli prison, readers get snatches of the confined spaces Palestinians exist in. A lovely, eloquent novella.