Longing For a Home That May Have Been Lost: Qissa sat down with Palestinian-American author Hannah Moushabeck to discuss her first book, Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine
Hannah Moushabeck was born the same year that her parents started Interlink Publishing, a small indie publisher dedicated to widening representation and offering new ways to see the world. Having emigrated from the Middle East in the 1970s, Hannah’s father, Michel Moushabeck, wanted to change the way the media and the publishing industry looked at the Middle East. Clearly this message was passed down to Hannah, who wrote the beautifully illustrated children’s book, Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine, partially because of the continued lack of Palestinian representation in the books she had growing up.
When I spoke with Hannah shortly before Christmas 2022, she told me about the one book she’d had growing up (and this book will no doubt be familiar to any Palestinians reading this) that represented her in some way. The book was Naomi Shihab Nye’s Sitti’s Secrets. This book also came into the world in 1994. Hannah felt like 29 years was far too long to wait for another traditionally published picture book by a Palestinian about Palestine! In a lovely full circle moment, Nye has written a glowing endorsement for the back of Hannah’s book, describing it as a ‘marvellous, utterly transporting story describing the gentle power of precious transmitted memory’.
Homeland manages to capture the spirit of the characters in the story, making them seem so alive, while simultaneously imbuing them with a sense of nostalgia, as we come to them through the stories of a father to his children. Hannah worked closely with the illustrator, Reem Madooh, to bring this story into being. It was something that had been brewing for a long time. The initial idea was sparked over dinner with a Vietnamese friend, where they were discussing being second generation immigrants to families displaced by war. Neither had ever been to their homelands but they had become wrapped up in a fairytale-like quality through the stories they’d had passed down to them. After the conversation, Hannah wrote the book in one day, before taking five years to edit it, reshape it and find a suitable home with Chronicle Books.
What Hannah hopes is special about the book is that so many Palestinians have not been able to return to their homeland, yet they feel a deep connection to this physical place that they’ve never been to. That place might not exist in the way it’s been described, so in a way, they’re holding onto these stories of locations and keeping them alive and preserved in some way. The book will resonate with anyone who has experienced displacement, either personally or generationally, and will no doubt bring up a lot of emotions. Hannah was nervous to hand the book over to her publisher father. Expecting a big emotional response, she was amused to discover a more professional one, with red lines sprawled across her manuscript. However, her family are clearly proud of her debut book, with her father discussing it in interviews and her family able to see themselves in the photographs included at the back of the book.
Talking about the pressure she felt to preserve these memories, Hannah described how choosing this story in particular was really important to her, as it was the last day her father set foot in Palestine and last day he ever saw his grandfather. She wanted to immortalise that moment for him and take a snapshot of what he remembers to be true. Palestinians talk about how existence is resistance and, as Hannah says, although this book doesn’t have a political agenda, the mere fact that it exists is, in itself, a political statement.
We encourage our community to check out Hannah’s book, Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine. Hannah was also kind enough to answer a few questions for us, which you can see at the video below.
