Atef Abu Saif – ‘A Suspended Life’

From the International Prize for Arabic Fiction official biography and book description:

Atef Abu Saif is a Palestinian writer. He was born in Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1973, to a family originally from Jaffa. He holds a B.A. from Birzeit University, an M.A. from the University of Bradford (UK) and a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the University of Florence, Italy. He teaches Political Science at the University of Al-Azhar, Gaza, and is Chief Editor of Siyasat magazine, published by the Public Policy Institute in Ramallah. He is the author of four novels: Shadows in the Memory (1997), The Tale of the Harvest Night (1999), Snowball (2000) and The Sour Grapes of Paradise (2003). He has also published two collections of short stories, three plays and a number of books of political science, including: Civil Society and the State: A Foundational Reading with Particular Reference to Palestine (2005). He writes a weekly article for the Palestinian Ayyam newspaper.

A Suspended Life is set in the Gaza refugee camp. Naim runs the only print shop in the camp, where he prints posters of martyred members of the community. When he is shot and killed by the Army, the fallout from his death changes the lives of the community living a quiet life on the fringes of the camp, where Naim’s house sits on a small hill. The place has historical significance for the residents and, when the government plans to build a police station and