Before the Queen Falls Asleep

A bittersweet love-letter of a book by the celebrated Palestinian writer Huzama Habayeb. Part confession, part inheritance, it is an immersive feminist novel that meshes the personal and political to moving effect – Preti Taneja * Financial Times *
An affecting portrait of one displaced family’s inescapable relationship with the past … a layered exploration of memory, exile and survival * Guardian *
Habayeb leaves her readers hanging on every word … Before the Queen Falls Asleep is a slowburner, yet the burn is hot and leaves a lasting impact … Its English translation has come at a time of utmost importance * Skinny *
A brilliant novel of the Palestinian diaspora. Funny and gritty, and bursting with life and humour. – Ahdaf Soueif * Guardian *
What a mother sacrifices for her child is immeasurable, but Palestinian writer Huzama Habayeb does a brilliant job at conveying such sacrifices … This moving novel highlights the hardships that displaced families endure, and the fight for a better life and the love they share. * The Herald *
Deftly translated from the Arabic by Kay Heikkinen, this is an absorbing novel about about the Palestinian diaspora … Memorable * Sunday Post *
Huzama Habayeb describes many worlds within one world. She weaves the East and the West within the Middle East, and explores the feeling of living in exile even when at home. She cares for the lives of children and women, always filled with difficulties and great hopes, in a compassionate and magical language. While searching for a solution in despair, she holds up a new mirror to the world, a mirror that everyone is invited to look at and question themselves – Burhan Sönmez

Huzama Habayeb is a Palestinian author and journalist. She was born in Kuwait, where she lived and worked as a journalist until she was forced to leave by the Gulf War. She settled in Jordan, establishing her reputation first as a short story writer, publishing her four prizewinning collections between 1992 and 2001, before publishing her first novel in 2007. Her first novel to be translated into English, Velvet, won the 2017 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. Before the Queen Falls Asleep is her second novel to be translated into English.

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