A sardonic, Palestinian Citizen Kane, Sand-Catcher is a dark and thrilling fable about collective memory and the many ways it can be both saved and subverted.
Four Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked with writing a profile on one of the last living witnesses of the
Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be more than willing to go on record about his experiences, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed by the man and his grandchildren. This living witness to history seems to have no desire to be interviewed, no desire for his memories to be preserved, no desire to talk. As the team’s editor-in-chief puts more and more pressure on the young journalists, a battle of wills escalates to ruinous consequences that will leave no one unscathed.
Omar Khalifah’s debut novel
Sand-Catcher is at once a polyphonic satire and a tightly plotted tale of suspense. Walking the line between gallows humor, rage, and depthless heartbreak, it is a unique reflection of contemporary Palestinian identity in all its facets.
Circa l’autore
Omar Khalifah is a novelist and short story writer in Arabic. His book,
Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary, was published in English by Edinburgh University Press in 2017. His collection
Ka’annani Ana (
As If I Were Myself) was published in Amman, Jordan in 2010, and his novel
Qabid al-Raml (
Sand-Catcher) was published in 2020. His articles have appeared in
Middle East Critique and
Journal of World Literature. A Fulbright scholar, Khalifah is assistant professor of Arabic Literature and Culture at Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
Barbara Romaine is an academic and literary translator. She has published translations of five novels, most recently
Waiting for the Past (Syracuse University Press, 2022), by the Iraqi novelist Hadiya Hussein. She has held two NEA fellowships in translation, one of which was for her work on Radwa Ashour’s
Spectres (Interlink Books, 2011).
Spectres went on to place second in the 2011 Saif Ghobash-Banipal international translation competition. Romaine’s translations of essays, short stories, and classical poetry have appeared in a variety of literary periodicals.
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