The Blue Between Sky and Water - Tapa dura

The story Susan Abulhawa tells in this marvellous novel is hard to bear but impossible to ignore. Through four generations of a Palestinian family, The Blue Between Sky and Water shows how history's assault on each person is public, and how it nevertheless cannot extinguish the private experience of grief or the secret sense of eros. Abulhawa's vision is precise, courageous, and dazzling (Teju Cole)

Not only a story about displacement. It takes in love, hatred, sex, rape, survival, death, loss and belonging. It is full of celebratory dances, partying on the beach, mourning, fear, mysteries, dirty jokes and national heroism . In true Thousand and One Nights style, Abulhawa surprises us by continually unfolding new stories. It is as if she is casting the fortunes of her characters while moving with them through the episodes of Middle East traumas . Characters struggle to keep their secrets, but Abulhawa releases them. These are secrets we need to know, secrets that will educate us about ourselves, and Gaza (Atef Abu Saif Guardian)

Gripping and deeply moving . Suffering and resilience are difficult things to witness, but this powerful, politically engaged novel does so with a transformative literary grace. Abulhawa's prose is luminous; her control of a complex weaving of narrative voices - young and old, male and female, magical and real - is masterful. The novel provides an intimate close-up of the women of Gaza and of the everyday heroism amid relentless loss (Margie Orford Independent on Sunday)

She is a fine observer of female kinship ... A powerful read (Financial Times)

I cried . the thing I found particularly remarkable was how it portrayed tragedy on a huge scale and a small scale as well. It was very human (Eugenia Cheng BBC Radio 3)

Terrific ... A gripping novel wonderfully written, a book which stays with you and moves you, peopled by larger than life characters ... There is nothing self-pitying about this book, it is fierce and powerful and deeply moving, you will want to read it again and again (Marxist Review)

Susan has taken different routes this time and there are no continuous shifts of first person to third person narrative as she did in her first. Her prose moves smoothly like a sledge on an icy surface. The style has also changed a bit and this is more literary and less ornamental (The Hindu)