All the Rivers

February 27, 2017
Bernstein Prize winner Rabinyan’s modern take on forbidden love between young dreamers on opposite sides of a bitter cultural conflict enthralls and delights. Liat, an Israeli Fulbright scholar studying in New York City, has a chance meeting one afternoon with the affable Hilmi, a Palestinian painter on an artist’s visa that explodes into an intense love affair. A relationship unthinkable at home flourishes in post 9/11 New York. Liat is poetic and emotive, her intense infatuation for Hilmi sustaining Rabinyan’s florid prose—the feel of Hilmi’s dark curls against her face, her strong reactions to his intense, beautiful paintings—making the electricity between the two lovers palpable. Although their relationship is full of passion, Liat believes their romantic fling cannot last and will end when she returns to Israel. But instead their intimacy grows into love, complicating the once-tenuous affair. It is a realistic relationship that sparks with vitality and vitriol, jumping through blissful rendezvous, heated arguments, and shameful secrets that build upon each other. While their political, cultural, and religious differences should be of little importance in multicultural New York City, there remains an obscure, impenetrable wall between them. Rabinyan beautifully loops the story from season to season, depicting Liat and Hilmi’s lives and love vividly and memorably.

November 1, 2017

Gabra Zackman narrates with intense intimacy, as if fully aware what she's reading is more than mere words on the page. This electrifying love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man continues to inspire global headlines--it's earned author Rabinyan (Persian Brides) both praise (Bernstein Prize, a letter of support from German chancellor Angela Merkel) and controversy (censorship by the Israeli Education Ministry; slander from Minister of Education Naftali Bennett who admits he's never read the book; even spit in the face on a Tel Aviv street). Perhaps inspired by her personal love story with the late Palestinian artist Hassan Hourani, Rabinyan brings scholar/translator Liat and painter Hilmi together in New York City, away from the political, social, and emotional pressures back home; that the lovers are both temporarily domiciled in the United States--Liat on a Fulbright, Hilmi with an artist's visa--underlines the seeming impossibility of a long-term union, yet their explosive liaison shows little signs of abating. Zackman empathically covers the range from control to desperation, resignation to hope. VERDICT For all libraries; multiple formats that encourage dialog and deeper understanding should be welcome acquisitions.--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

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