The Blue Between Sky and Water

It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a quiet village in Palestine surrounded by olive groves, is home to the Baraka family. Eldest daughter Nazmiyeh looks after her widowed mother, prone to wandering and strange outbursts, while her brother, Mamdouh, tends to the village bees. Their younger sister, Mariam, with her striking mismatched eyes, spends her days talking to imaginary friends and writing.

When Israeli forces gather outside the town's borders, nobody suspects the terror that is about to descend. Soon the village is burning, and, amid smoke and ash, the family must take the long road to Gaza, in a walk that will test them to their limits.

Sixty years later Mamdouh's granddaughter, Nur, is living in America. She falls in love with a married man, a doctor who works in Palestine, and follows him to Gaza. There she meets Alwan, the mother of Khaled - a boy trapped in his own body, unable to wake up from a deep blue dream. It is through her that Nur will at last discover the ties of kinship that transcend distance - and even death.

The Blue Between Sky and Water is a story of powerful, flawed women; of relocation, separation, and heartache; of renewal, family, endurance, and love. Susan Abulhawa brings a raw humanity and delicate authority to the story of Palestine in this devastatingly beautiful tale.

©2015 Susan Abulhawa (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

The complexities of identity experienced by children born in exile.

Beautiful storytelling. Loved hearing about some Palestinian traditions and superstitions I'd never heard of before. Educational too, tells the important story of the resilience of Palestinians in spite of years of apartheid by Israel.

Bad choice of narrator

As much as I LOVED the book, the narrator wasn’t the right choice. Her pronunciation of the Arabic words was really bad. I would sometimes struggle to know what the real word is. I wish the narrator was someone with Arabic accent.

Great story

Beautiful story. But I really wish they had a narrator who could pronounce Arabic names and words correctly.

Beautiful story.. Bad pronouciation

The story was beautiful.. Poignant. The narrator has a beautiful voice and would definitely listen to her if she narrated another book that didn't have Arabic phrases. She could have done a little research before narrating Arabic phrases. To name a few, It is Allahu Akbar.. Not Allahu Akbaaar (Akbaaar means news), she kept getting confused between the names Mamdouh and mahmoud. It is Djinn not Jean... Just imagine someone saying Croysant instead of Croissant. I cringed every time she mispronounced the words.

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Amazing story that puts you right in the heart of how Palestinians live. You sense a window opening slowly to all parts of that culture. It shows the pain, the love, the compassion. How much longer can they live in this oppression ? I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand the conflicts in that part of the world. Thank you Susan