The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem
In her second novel, Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem imagines a near future where all Palestinians suddenly disappear
Ibtisam Azem’s second novel The Book of Disappearance depicts the reality desired by the ongoing project to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and erase Palestine, imagining the ineffable horror that is the land without her native people when all Palestinians one day disappear.
The novel’s structure kindles the reader into bearing witness to a collective and ongoing history of trauma. Like the Palestinian people, it is patient. It savours the slow characterisation of evil in order to portray its dreadfulness rather than impulsively exposing it. Azem cultivates gravitas by depicting reality’s absurdity, shifting between the protagonist’s diary and his progressively unbearable settler friend. This character and colonial entity he represents become impositions and impediments to the greater Palestinian struggle for rights, dignity and land.
Azem’s multiple characters and perspectives, dense as they are, do not complicate the narrative for the reader; rather, they illuminate the eminent truth that is the undying hope in Palestinian justice. Undying too, in The Book of Disappearance, is Palestinian memory. While Palestinian memory is censored and criminalised in the narrative, Azem deploys this poetic grappling with memory, guilt, and paranoia to depict the significance of stories being told instead of disappeared.
The occupation of Palestine has scarred the land and people, from the river to the sea. Azem’s speculative craft pays tribute to the concurrent love and mourning of life that permeate Palestinian existence amidst a soulless and artificial colonial entity.