Mother of Strangers
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Amin El Gamal
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Lameece Issaq
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By:
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Suad Amiry
About this listen
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR from NPR • Set in Jaffa in between 1947 and 1951, this “fable-like historical novel of young love ... darkly humorous and touching” (Oprah Daily) is based on a true story during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people.
Based on the true story of two Jaffa teenagers, Mother of Strangers follows the daily lives of Subhi, a fifteen-year-old mechanic, and Shams, the thirteen-year-old student he hopes to marry one day. In this prosperous and cosmopolitan port city, with its bustling markets, cinemas, and cafés on the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, we meet many other unforgettable characters as well, including Khawaja Michael, the elegant and successful owner of orange groves above the harbor; Mr. Hassan, the tailor who makes Subhi’s treasured English suit, which he hopes will change his life; and the very mischievous and outrageous Uncle Habeeb, who insists on introducing Subhi to the local bordello.
With a thriving orange export business, Jaffa had always been a city welcoming to outsiders—the “Mother of Strangers”—where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived peacefully together. Once the bombardment of the city begins in April 1948, Suad Amiry gives us the grim but fascinating details of the shock, panic, and destruction that ensues. Jaffa becomes unrecognizable, with neighborhoods flattened, families removed from their homes and separated, and those who remain in constant danger of arrest and incarceration. Most of the population flees eastward to Jordan or by sea to Lebanon in the north or to Egypt and Gaza in the south. Subhi and Shams will never see each other again.
Suad Amiry has written a vivid and devastating account of a seminal moment in the history of the Middle East—the beginning of the end of Palestine and a portrait of a city irrevocably changed.
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Critic reviews
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR from NPR
“A captivating novel about love amid warfare . . . a story as sobering as it is entertaining.”—The Hudson Review
“Toward the beginning of this novel, Subhi–“the best mechanic in town,” despite being only 15–is called to fix the well of a local citrus magnate. When he arrives at the grove, he is taken aback by how different the city of Jaffa looks from way up high; how seeing it from this vantage point must affect one’s hopes, fears, politics and loyalties. That sense of perspective-shifting carries throughout the book. The characters force readers to think about how our desires change when our settings do and how expansive (or limited) our sense of reality might be.”—“Books We Love 2022,” NPR
“[A] moving story. . . . Mother of Strangers describes the price paid in human lives when exclusivist states are created violently.”—Middle East Books Review
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- By Stacy on 04-04-16
By: Jean Sasson
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The Home That Was Our Country
- By: Alia Malek
- Narrated by: Alia Malek
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parents' decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country
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Syria as never read before
- By rami hachwi on 09-17-18
By: Alia Malek
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I Am a Bacha Posh
- My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan
- By: Ukmina Manoori, Stephanie Lebrun, Peter E. Chianchiano - translator
- Narrated by: Ariana Delawari
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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"You will be a son, my daughter." With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy. In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh: literally "girls dressed as boys." This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and work - and in some cases, it saves them from the disgrace of not having a male heir. But in adolescence, religion restores the natural law.
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Good story, awful pronunciation
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-21
By: Ukmina Manoori, and others
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Behind Enemy Lines
- The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany
- By: Marthe Cohn, Wendy Holden
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Marthe Cohn was a young Jewish woman living just across the German border in France when Hitler rose to power. Her family sheltered Jews fleeing the Nazis, including Jewish children sent away by their terrified parents. But soon her homeland was also under Nazi rule. As the Nazi occupation escalated, Marthe's sister was arrested and sent to Auschwitz and the rest of her family was forced to flee to the south of France. Always a fighter, Marthe joined the French Army and became a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army.
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Amazing story of a fighter and survivor
- By Magalie Busch on 05-06-19
By: Marthe Cohn, and others
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Growing Up bin Laden
- Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World
- By: Jean Sasson, Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A true story that few ever believed would come to light, Growing Up bin Laden uncovers startling revelations and hidden secrets carefully guarded by the most wanted terrorist of our lifetime, Osama bin Laden.
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Fascinating. I could not stop listening.
- By Curatina on 04-14-10
By: Jean Sasson, and others
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Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
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Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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Mother Tongue
- A Saga of Three Generations of Balkan Women
- By: Tania Romanov
- Narrated by: Becky Parker
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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What is your mother tongue? Sometimes the simplest questions take a book to answer. Such is the case with Tania Romanov's story of exile, emigration, and immigration and how native language can be a powerful touchstone for the sense of home. The unrelenting consequences of 100 years of Balkan wars force three generations of Croatian women to flee their homelands multiple times. Eventually, Tania, a successfully integrated American immigrant from Eastern Europe, journeys back to her fractured homeland with her mother to unravel the secrets of their shared past.
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Ljiljana Popovic, born in former Yugoslavia
- By Ljiljana Popovic on 03-18-21
By: Tania Romanov
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Claiming My Place: Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Holocaust
- By: Planaria Price, Helen Reichmann West
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Barbara Reichmann, once known as Gucia Gomolinska: smart, determined, independent, and steadfast in the face of injustice. A Jew growing up in predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and ’30s, Gucia studies hard, makes friends, falls in love, and dreams of a bright future. Her world is turned upside down when Nazis invade Poland and establish the first Jewish ghetto of World War II in her town of Piotrko´w Trybunalski.
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Amazing
- By Nordic Artisan on 07-09-18
By: Planaria Price, and others
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Destined to Witness
- Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
- By: Hans Massaquoi
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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What would life be like for a Black boy growing up in Nazi Germany? This unprecedented autobiography answers that question with the spellbinding true story of Hans J. Massaquoi’s life in Hamburg during the height of Hitler’s regime. Hans is the son of a Black Liberian diplomat father and a white German mother. His father returns to Africa at the beginning of the war, leaving them behind in poverty without the means to flee. Within this tense atmosphere, increasingly violent Nazi policies and Allied bombing raids make Hans and his mother’s lives a day-to-day survival struggle.
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An important story, marred by lackluster writing.
- By Christopher on 03-04-15
By: Hans Massaquoi
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Dancing with the Enemy
- My Family's Holocaust Secret
- By: Paul Glaser
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster, Christa Lewis
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The gripping story of the author's aunt, a Jewish dance instructor who was betrayed to the Nazis by the two men she loved, yet managed to survive WWII by teaching dance lessons to the SS at Auschwitz. Her epic life becomes a window into the author's own past and the key to discovering his Jewish roots.
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Amazing Unique
- By Nordic Artisan on 05-11-19
By: Paul Glaser
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Death Is Hard Work
- A Novel
- By: Khaled Khalifa, Leri Price - translator
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is - after all - only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There's only one problem: Their country is a war zone.
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The bleakness of living in a war-torn country!
- By Susan on 03-20-19
By: Khaled Khalifa, and others
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Led by Faith
- By: Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Narrated by: Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For three months in the spring of 1994, the African nation of Rwanda descended into one of the most vicious and bloody genocides the world has ever seen. Immaculée Ilibagiza, a young university student, miraculously survived the savage killing spree that left most of her family, friends, and a million of her fellow citizens dead. Immaculée's remarkable story of survival was documented in her first book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.
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Interesting perspective
- By RayChu on 03-13-13
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Wild Swans
- Three Daughters of China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 22 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular best seller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
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Accurate, moving and chilling
- By David on 12-15-12
By: Jung Chang
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Golden Earrings
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Catalina, grand-daughter of Spanish refugees, is a disciplined student with the School of the Paris Opera Ballet. Little gets inthe way of her career until the visit of an otherworldly being, who leaves her a mysterious pair of golden earrings. Given a quest, Catalina realises she must explore her own Spanish heritage and makes the connection between the visitor and ‘La Rusa’, a young Andalusian flamenco star. La Rusa died in exile in Paris in 1952, her death ruled as suicide. But as Catalina begins to discover, there were those in the community, who had good reason for wanting La Rusa dead.
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Fabulous story
- By Paddington on 10-19-12
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Find Me Unafraid
- Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum
- By: Kennedy Odede, Jessica Posner
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson, Mandy Siegfried, P.J. Ochlan (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Find Me Unafraid tells the uncommon love story between two uncommon people whose collaboration sparked a successful movement to transform the lives of vulnerable girls and the urban poor. With a foreword by Nicholas Kristof.
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A difficult and rewarding listen
- By R. MCRACKAN on 08-23-18
By: Kennedy Odede, and others
What listeners say about Mother of Strangers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- HijaDelSol
- 05-03-24
Slice of tragic history
This fact-based story set during the creation of the state of Israel gives a heartbreaking perspective on the Palestinian side of events as they unfolded in Jaffa. The writing isn’t great - the overall narrative structure and much of the exposition can be pretty clunky. However, the narration by Amin El-Gamal, who reads the Subhi part, is perfect and it’s great that they got Arabic speakers to pronounce everything correctly. Overall it was a worthwhile listen and, even if only half of it is “true”, makes it easy to sympathize with the Palestinians as a dispossessed and displaced people. (NB: For a Jewish/Zionist perspective, I remember Exodus by Leon Uris being very moving.)
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- malita
- 02-04-24
Touching
I loved this story and once I realized it was based on true events I was very much touched by the beauty of the humans spirit. The tragedy of so many lives being disrupted and destroyed but so bravely endured was amazingly touching and at times unbelievably painful. If everyone was like the characters in the story life would have been so much more better in the world.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-04-23
Absolutely amazing story of the Nakba
I am a grandchild of the Nakba (my mother was born in 1946 and fled in ‘48 with some of her family.) This is an absolutely incredible story that I only wish was fiction. Had me weeping by the end. Highly recommend!
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- bana t kayyali
- 06-08-23
The best book I read this year .
I was born in Amman after 1948 . My parents were kicked out of the home in Safad . A great book brought lots of sadness and laughter to my heart .
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- candace tannous
- 09-16-23
Old Jaffa Comes Alive Again
Amiry’s rich descriptions of Jaffa as it existed before the nabka from buildings to streets to the sea, the port, the orange groves and neighborhoods match exactly with the stories we’ve heard from our large family that fled to Beirut in May 1948. My husband was born in 1949 in a refugee camp in Beirut. The family home still stands on Aplaton Street in Jaffa, occupied by strangers. The heartbreak continues and these stories must never be forgotten as the descendants continue with resilience, determination and love for the city of oranges. So grateful for this well-written book.
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