The House in Talbiya

A vivid multigenerational novel about two families - one Israeli, one Palestinian - and the house that connects them

For every tree, there is a double. One above ground, and another below. There is a tree that is visible, with its branches climbing skyward, and another tree, with a network of roots in the earth, mirror images of each other.

Jerusalem, 1939: A Jewish bookbinder and his young niece, Agata Glaser, are hired to repair books at a family library in Talbiya, the fanciest neighborhood in Jerusalem. They arrive at an elegant villa of white limestone, surrounded by flowers and fruit trees. Agata-a refugee after her parents sent her away from her native Prague to avoid the Nazi advance-sees the house's balconies, stained glass windows, and beautiful garden, and thinks, I want to live here, someday.

The house belongs to a family of affluent Christian Arabs, owners of a soap factory in Nablus, with two young sons. Their youngest, Bassam Khoury, befriends Agata, and the two spend the summer together in the lavish house.

Nine years later, the Nakba drives Bassam and his family out of the house, and they become refugees in the West Bank. Years after that, Agata and her family move into the house in Talbiya--now in the newly established state of Israel.

Told through the story of the house central to both families' stories, The House in Talbiya moves across a century, to Ramallah, Cambridge, and New York, to children and grandchildren, weaving a deeply touching portrait of diaspora, loss, and intergenerational trauma. Vivid and intimate, The House in Talbiya is a beautifully rendered story about exile, immigration, the lives we are forced to live, and the ones we miss altogether.

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