Wild Thorns
Sahar Khalifeh
The first Arabic novel to show everyday life under the occupation from inside it — a fighter comes home to Nablus to find his own people adjusted to the thing he came to blow up.
Usama returns to the West Bank after years working in the Gulf, an operative of the resistance with an assignment: destroy the buses carrying Palestinian day-labourers into Israel. What he finds is not the country he left. His countrymen have adjusted to life under military control — some ground down into it, some working those very jobs to keep families alive, none of them reducible to the word that would make Usama’s task simple. He proceeds anyway, and the consequences are not the ones he intended.
First published in Arabic in Jerusalem in 1976, less than a decade into the occupation, Wild Thorns was the first Arab novel to give an honest picture of ordinary social and personal life under military rule — not the occupation as symbol, but the occupation as commute, wage packet, permit, family argument. Khalifeh refuses every available consolation. Nobody in the book is allowed to be simply a hero or simply a collaborator, and the novel is far harder on the reader for it. It is the reason the book has lasted: propaganda dates, and this does not.
About the author
Sahar Khalifeh was born in Nablus in 1941. She married at eighteen and left the marriage after thirteen years, and began to write; her first novel was confiscated by the Israeli authorities and her second published in Cairo. She holds a doctorate in women’s studies and American literature from the University of Iowa, taught at Iowa and at Birzeit University, and founded the Women’s Affairs Centres in Nablus, Gaza City and Amman. Wild Thorns was her third novel; she is the author of eight.
Details
- Arabic original first published in Jerusalem, 1976
- English translation by Trevor LeGassick and Elizabeth Fernea
- Interlink Books edition — 208 pages, ISBN 9781566563369
- Saqi Books edition, August 2023, with a new introduction by Mohammed Hanif — 272 pages
Where to find it
- In print from Interlink Publishing, a Palestinian-owned independent press, and from Saqi Books in the UK.
- Orderable through any independent bookshop; widely held by libraries.
Connected in the archive
22 connected records22 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
named in this record — 3 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Gaza Cityغزة
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: She holds a doctorate in women's studies and American literature from the University of Iowa, taught at Iowa and at Birzeit University, and founded the Women's Affairs Centres in Nablus, Gaza City and Amman.
- Jerusalemالقدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: First published in Arabic in Jerusalem in 1976, less than a decade into the occupation, Wild Thorns was the first Arab novel to give an honest picture of ordinary social and personal life under military rule — not the occupation as symbol, but the occupation as commute, wage packet, permit, family argument.
- Nablusنابلس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Sahar Khalifeh was born in Nablus in 1941.
on a related subject — 19 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- +972 Magazine
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "occupation".
- A Mountainous Journey: A Poet's Autobiography
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nablus".
- Apeirogon
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "novel".
- Fadwa Touqanفدوى طوقان
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nablus".
- Gate of the Sun
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "novel".
- Haydar Abd al-Shafi at Madrid: We Come to You From a Tortured Land
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "occupation".
- and 13 more
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“Wild Thorns.” Library, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/library/wild-thorns/.- MLA
“Wild Thorns.” Library, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/library/wild-thorns/. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-wild-thorns, title = {Wild Thorns}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/library/wild-thorns/}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }