A Map of Home

Randa Jarrar. A Map of Home. New York: Penguin Books, 2008. 292 pages. Paper $15.00.

Reviewed by Dina Jadallah

Good literature is able to pierce through mental, social, and cultural barriers by skillful storytelling. It gives insight into important issues and provokes contemplation. It is also a great read.

A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar delivers on all fronts. This delightfully humorous, poetic, and thought-provoking novel is, on the surface, a simple coming of age story of a young girl with an amalgamated identity. It traces her journey of growth and discovery first in Kuwait, and then after Saddam's invasion in 1990, in Egypt and the United States. The story takes place in the context of the disruptive and mutable political, cultural, and social environment that is an inevitable part of being Palestinian.

The novel's significance lies in the complexity of its narrative. Jarrar addresses some big questions. What and where is home? How does one find self and identity when confronted with a reality of homelessness, occupation, and an almost complete lack of the most basic national and political protection and rights? Conversely, does the physical non-possession of a homeland necessitate rootlessness? And, is home a location or a journey? The answers to these questions have personal and political implications.

A Map of Home highlights the personal aspects, but contextualizes them within the larger socio-political space of the Arab world. This makes the novel translate more easily across cultures. But while the story of this particular Palestinian is a common one, its de-emphasis of nationalism, rights- and justice-based resistance, and politicized perspectives are a-typical of the views of most Palestinians. This could partly be the unfortunate by-product of linguistic formulation. For instance, Jarrar uses the term "homeland" as opposed to "nation" or "state" or even "proto-state" (9, 257). While "homeland" is a direct translation of the Arabic watan , which frequently connotes a territorial nation, in English its potential nationalistic content is de-politicized in the legal and territorial sense. The concept is more amorphous and fungible.

At the personal level of the protagonist, Jarrar uses the central trope of a map as a vehicle with which to explore the struggles involved in shaping one's identity. The overarching theme of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict buffeting...