PA daily reports on novel by Palestinian student about “occupied Palestinian city” of Haifa
Headline: “’The love of Haifa’ – a novel by child Dunya Sanawnaw from Salfit”
"They absorb the love for the homeland from an early age: Despite her young age, and although there are some who question her novel, Dunya Sanawnaw, a 10th grader at the Girls High school in Salfit, was 15 when she completed her first novel, where she expresses her fervent love for her dear homeland Palestine.
Without guidance from anyone, she finished writing the novel ‘The Love of Haifa’, which weighs on the readers and makes them cry over the situation of Haifa, 67 years after its occupation by the ‘Israelis’… She said: ‘I visited Haifa and Acre, and they were very beautiful, but when I was a little girl I went shopping in Haifa and wanted to buy a bottle of water from one of the shops on the Haifa beach. I was surprised that the shopkeeper did not know Arabic and I had to speak English to him to make him understand what I wanted to buy. I found out later that he was a Jewish settler brought from abroad.’ As for the details of the novel, Sanawnaw wrote about the essence of her ideas, her emotions and her deep love for the Palestinian city of Haifa, and its transformation from a pure Palestinian and Arab city, lively and full of joy… to a city that only 2% of its current residents are Palestinians, [a city] forgotten by some.
Sanawnaw noted that her novel expresses the extent of the Palestinian man’s love for his homeland, and the fact that he has not forgotten [it], in spite of the expulsion and the long years that passed [since]; that he would sacrifice his life for it without hesitation; that he realizes that its liberation will not come on a silver platter; that the love of the homeland is rooted in his heart and thoughts; that the occupier must leave, not those who have been the legal owners of this land for thousands of years…”
"They absorb the love for the homeland from an early age: Despite her young age, and although there are some who question her novel, Dunya Sanawnaw, a 10th grader at the Girls High school in Salfit, was 15 when she completed her first novel, where she expresses her fervent love for her dear homeland Palestine.
Without guidance from anyone, she finished writing the novel ‘The Love of Haifa’, which weighs on the readers and makes them cry over the situation of Haifa, 67 years after its occupation by the ‘Israelis’… She said: ‘I visited Haifa and Acre, and they were very beautiful, but when I was a little girl I went shopping in Haifa and wanted to buy a bottle of water from one of the shops on the Haifa beach. I was surprised that the shopkeeper did not know Arabic and I had to speak English to him to make him understand what I wanted to buy. I found out later that he was a Jewish settler brought from abroad.’ As for the details of the novel, Sanawnaw wrote about the essence of her ideas, her emotions and her deep love for the Palestinian city of Haifa, and its transformation from a pure Palestinian and Arab city, lively and full of joy… to a city that only 2% of its current residents are Palestinians, [a city] forgotten by some.
Sanawnaw noted that her novel expresses the extent of the Palestinian man’s love for his homeland, and the fact that he has not forgotten [it], in spite of the expulsion and the long years that passed [since]; that he would sacrifice his life for it without hesitation; that he realizes that its liberation will not come on a silver platter; that the love of the homeland is rooted in his heart and thoughts; that the occupier must leave, not those who have been the legal owners of this land for thousands of years…”