Books that Open Worlds: A Palestinian Reader’s Journey
Books that Open Worlds: A Palestinian Reader’s Journey
On the English Translation of Najlaa Attallah’s Asad’s Secret
By Nada Hodali
Asad’s Secret is a YA novel by the Palestinian author Najlaa Attallah. Originally published in Arabic as Sirr As’ad (سر أسعد) by Tamer Institute for Community Education, the English translation, Asad’s Secret, was translated by Sawad Hussain and published by Levine Querido. In translating Attallah’s work, Hussain demonstrates that Arabic literature need not be domesticated to reach an international audience. Preserving the texture of Palestinian life, language, and emotion is precisely what allows the novel to resonate beyond its original context. While aimed at Palestinian young adults, the novel can easily be read by international YA audiences and older readers, as it highlights issues and circumstances that we are, unfortunately, still living through today.
The novel follows the internal turmoil of its seventeen-year-old protagonist, Asad, who lives in a refugee camp in Gaza City. Asad struggles to pursue his dreams, with the support of Um Fawzi, while being weighed down by his father’s actions and by the thought that he is living in a prison within a prison. This is highlighted when Asad’s uncle, ’Am Taher, remarks that Asad’s father would leave one prison only to find himself in another—the Gaza Strip itself.
Throughout the novel, there are repeated references to life in a prison within a prison, an idea that recalls the term “open-air prison,” which historian Ilan Pappé has used in his writings on Palestine and the Palestinian cause. Gaza is often described as the world’s largest open-air prison, and this idea has become even more visible during the genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023.
Um Fawzi serves as Asad’s safe space. Throughout the novel, she gives him room to explore different worlds by asking questions that encourage him to examine his thoughts and emotions. Through these conversations, he begins to understand what he is feeling and how to navigate it. Um Fawzi helps several characters discover who they are and find their own voices. Her unfortunate death creates a void in Asad’s life, one that he is only able to fill years later through a gift she gave him long before. Asad wholeheartedly believes that he will never be able to achieve anything in Gaza, so he works tirelessly to secure a better future for himself and become the “miracle kid, the one who leaves this neighborhood.”
But just in time, Houriya’s presence brings Asad to life. She awakens emotions he has never experienced before. Much of this begins with a simple gesture: lending him books to read, allowing him to explore. Through these books, Asad enters her world without the two of them ever truly speaking to one another. He lacks the courage to confess his feelings, believing that the circumstances surrounding them require him to focus on survival rather than something as seemingly impractical as love. Without realizing it, Houriya sets Asad on a journey of self-discovery. Through the book exchanges, she introduces him to new worlds and ideas. At first, Asad takes pride in finishing books, only to realize that he is not truly absorbing what they contain. The book that ultimately breaks this cycle and opens the door to deeper reading is a novel by Paulo Coelho.
Attallah grounds the political reality of Gaza not through direct statements but through the texture of Asad’s everyday life: his walks through the refugee camp, his mother’s silence regarding his father, and the significance of sharing a cup of coffee with Um Fawzi. The occupation is not merely a backdrop; it inhabits every household decision, every deferred dream, and every feeling Asad cannot afford to act upon.
One of Sawad Hussain’s most effective translation choices is her decision to retain terms such as ‘Am for uncle and Um and Yamma for mother. Keeping expressions such as “Ya satir” in transliteration rather than translating them directly preserves their cultural weight and texture without disrupting the narrative flow. Similarly, retaining relational titles like ‘Am and Um allows family dynamics to remain authentic and rooted in place. These choices invite readers into the world of the novel rather than positioning them as outside observers.
The translation also preserves the cultural specificity of Palestinian life through endearments, food names, and everyday references, allowing readers to become fully immersed in Palestinian society. Hussain successfully maintains Attallah’s narrative style, particularly the duality of Asad’s inner and outer voice. Internal reflections are often followed by spoken responses to those same thoughts, which are then followed by interactions with other characters. This rhythm remains intact throughout the translation.
It is particularly interesting how Asad converses with himself. His thoughts appear in italics, after which he responds to them aloud. This distinction allows ideas to flow smoothly while simultaneously returning both Asad and the reader to the reality of his circumstances. His mind is filled with questions, and readers move through them one at a time. Over the course of the novel, Asad learns that reading requires more than simply moving through words on a page; it requires surrendering to the text and allowing it to unfold. The shift in how he reads mirrors the transformation in his outlook on life. He evolves from a child desperate to escape the horrors of Gaza into an adult who cannot wait to return once his studies in the United States are complete.
The novel’s emphasis on reading reveals the depth of inner turmoil carried by a child growing up in a refugee camp in Gaza. Literature becomes both a refuge and a path toward self-discovery. The portrayal of reading and the process of becoming a reader further suggests that the novel’s intended audience extends beyond Palestinian youth to young adults around the world.
While the internal dialogue is one of the novel’s most distinctive features, it occasionally works against the narrative’s momentum. The repetition of Asad’s central anxieties—leaving Gaza, his absent father, and his unspoken feelings for Houriya—is understandable given the reality of life under occupation, where the same fears return day after day. On the page, however, some readers may feel that certain emotional beats are revisited more often than necessary.
Beneath the political urgency of the novel runs a quieter argument: Palestinians carry immense reserves of love, often suppressed not by a lack of feeling but by the demands of survival.
Although the novel is set in 2011–2012, the emotions and experiences it depicts connect directly to the situation Palestinians face today amid the genocide in Gaza. The crisis has become far more catastrophic than it was when the novel was written. Even the possibility of studying abroad has become increasingly remote, as many students are now unable to leave Gaza to pursue their education.
Ultimately, the arrival of Asad’s Secret in English is as much an act of preservation as it is an act of translation. It rescues a Palestinian story from the margins of international literature and insists, through Hussain’s careful and culturally rooted translation, that it be heard on its own terms.
Nada Hodali is a Palestinian literary translator working between Arabic and English. She holds degrees from Birzeit University and Durham University, BA English literature and MA Translation Studies. Committed to amplifying Arab voices, her work has appeared in journals such as ArabLit Quarterly, Mousse, and ANMLY, as well as with Interlink Publishing and TBA21. She has translated authors including Sahar Khalifeh and Najem Wali. Her recent projects include 30 Seconds from Gaza by Mohammad Sabaaneh (2025) and Safaa and the Tent by Safaa Odah (2025).