Book description
It is the summer of 1982 and Beirut is under siege. Eighteen-year-old Ivan's parents have just been evacuated from the city with other members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Ivan stays on, interpreting for international medical volunteers in Sabra refugee camp by day, getting stoned with them by night, and…
Why read it?
1 author picked Sabra Zoo as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
What I love in Hiller’s writing is the no-glory honesty of growing up in settings of omniscient violence where the last wish of the protagonists is to be heroic. They are vulnerable young men trying to get by, to do the right thing, to find calm.
This book and its sister book, Shake Off, are some of the finest works of fiction set during political conflict and war that I have read. Hiller’s gracious enough as to refrain from indulging in the gratuitous or the showy, but these are finely crafted thrillers. They are both equally gripping, taking the…
From Selma's list on being Palestinian.
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