Set in Palestine, before the creation of the state of Israel, this lyrical and deftly written novel spans three generations living in the small village of Hadiya. Reaching back into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the immense history of this period is brought into focus by the very human stories of Hajj Mahmoud, his son Khaled, and grandson Naji. As the cruel hand of history hovers above them, their destinies are shaped by outside forces - first the crumbling Ottoman Empire, then the British Mandate, and finally the Nakba. Nasrallah's elegant and epic tale is one of both suffering and survival, heart-break and hope.

Sweeping saga of key moments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

About the Author
Revered author and poet, Ibrahim Nasrallah is considered one of the most influential Arab voices of his generation. Born and raised in a Jordanian refugee camp to Palestinian parents, he went on to become a journalist before turning to his writing full time. His work includes numerous poetry collections, literary criticism and fourteen novels. In 2009 he was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He lives and works in Amman, Jordan.An award-winning translator of contemporary Arabic literature, Nancy Roberts' recent translations include key works by Naguib Mahfouz, Hala El-Badry, Ghadda Samman, Mohamed el-Bisatie and Salwa Bakr. She lives and works in Amman, Jordan.

Reviews

"Nasrallah paints a vivid portrait of the idiosyncratic villagers . . . . Roberts's translation is excellent."--Peter Clark, Times Literary Supplement

"You soon realize the power of Nasrallah's novel. Any notion that this is just nostalgic reverie is dispelled . . . Nasrallah's intensely eloquent voice gives Western audiences an insight into the lives of the marginalized without rattling off numbers."--Tam Hussein, New Statesman

"Men are murdered or executed, demolitions and collective punishment meted out, ancestral lands taken at a stroke. One learns the lesson that the behavior of any oppressor is the same, regardless of time or circumstance."--Norbert Hirschhorn, Banipal Magazine

"I turned these pages with trepidation for nearly a month, sometimes holding my breath and swallowing hard. I was reading the unfolding of my own life, and the lives of all Palestinians. I knew what was going to happen and in the strange ways of a heart touched by literature, I wanted to warn the characters."--Susan Abulhawa

"[Nasrallah] conveys a powerful sense of the textures of place, time and custom . . . With the publication of Time of White Horses, lovingly translated by Nancy Roberts, our understanding of the history of modern Arabic literature has taken a giant leap forward."--Raymond Deane, The Electronic Intifada

"The measure of the greatness of this book is its humility in approaching a people's vast experiences and rituals across this long stretch of time between Ottoman and British then Israeli occupation, as Nasrallah deftly narrates this community's character within a specific locale and around the acts of the novel's hero, Khaled, whose reflections and deeds ennoble the lives of each successive generation. That Nasrallah's writing evokes this epic grandeur in discrete, alluring, lyric chapters, one story seamlessly weaving into another, is even more compelling: the long novel enlightens us in flash fictions which illuminate each other and sustain our attention."--Benjamin Hollander, Warscapes

"Time of White Horses charts the history of three generations of a Palestinian family in a small village, Jordanian author Ibrahim Nasrallah's saga is a descendant of a genre introduced into Arabic fiction by Naguib Mahfouz's famous Cairo Trilogy. Through the lives of the members of this family, Nasrallah depicts the tragedy of a whole nation under changing historical circumstances: the Ottoman rule, the British Mandate and the Nakba (the catastrophe of the Jewish occupation of Palestinian land in 1948) to the expulsion of the Palestinians and finally the post-Nakba era."--Judges Committee, International Prize for Arabic Fiction

"Time of White Horses rewrites the crisis of Palestinian representation--the simultaneous necessity and impossibility of historical narrative--in the form of historical fiction."--Karim Mattar, Journal of Postcolonial Writing

"Written in a shimmering and sensitive style, it has a captivating grip on the reader, a lasting effect on his/her sensibility and memory. This is the greatest creative portrayal which explains, through fine art, the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the causes of their disaster."--Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Founder and Director of East-West Nexus for Studies and Research and of PROTA, Project of Translation from Arabic

Book Information
ISBN 9789774167577
Author Ibrahim Nasrallah
Format Paperback
Page Count 664
Imprint Hoopoe
Publisher The American University in Cairo Press
Weight(grams) 602g
Dimensions(mm) 205mm * 130mm * 46mm