Passage to the Plaza, Hardcover

In Bab Al-Saha, a quarter of Nablus, Palestine, sits a house of ill repute. In it lives Nuzha, a young woman ostracized from and shamed by her community. When the Intifada breaks out, Nuzha's abode unexpectedly becomes a sanctuary for those in the quarter: Hussam, an injured resistance fighter; Samar, a university researcher exploring the impact of the Intifada on women's lives; and Sitt Zakia, the pious midwife.

In the furnace of conflict at the heart of the 1987 Intifada, notions of freedom, love, respectability, nationhood, the rights of women, and Palestinian identity--both among the reluctant residents of the house and the inhabitants of the quarter at large--will be melted and re-forged. Vividly recounted through the eyes of its female protagonists, Passage to the Plaza is a groundbreaking story that shatters the myth of a uniform gendered experience of conflict.

Sahar Khalifeh was born in Nablus in 1941 and is one of the most prominent Palestinian writers of our time. She is the author of eleven novels, all of which deal with the situation of the Palestinians under occupation. Sawad Hussain is a translator living in Cambridge.