One morning, Israel wakes up with its Palestinian residents disappearing out of nowhere. 24 hours after, there is still no trace of them, and it seems there is no security danger to cope with either. The Book of Disappearance by Jaffa-born, Hebrew University of Jerusalem educated Ibtisam Azem - translated into English by Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon who also translated Mahmoud Darwish- explores exactly this premise: what will happen if suddenly all Palestinians in Israel disappear unexpectedly.
The story is told through the inter-twinned stories of Ariel, a Jewish journalist, and Alaa, a young Palestinian who converses with his grandmother in the diary he left after disappearing. They are neighbours on Rotschild Boulevard and Ariel ends up by translating Alaa´s testimony and taking over his home, whose locks is planning to change at the end of the story.
Although the writing is good - in its political satyric take - and the details are realistic, any book that imagined the disappearance of a group of people only to narrate the same ideological truism about various interpretations of the ´occupation´ it does not have any of my sympathies. It just extends the ´either or´ mindset, creating a mentality that in any way will improve anything but the high level of hate and intolerance, taking away any chance of building a new world, outside the one based on a hyper-historical narrative.
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