About Ever Land and Amy
It is the year 2000 when Dinah, a Jewish teenager from London, arrives in Israel with her family. Still reeling from the death of her beloved dad, the idea of having to start all over again daunts her. Dinah isn’t quite sure what to make of this seemingly pristine place: her new life seems soulless and suffocating.
Another teenager, Safa, watches Dinah settle in. A fourteen-year-old Palestinian who was shot and killed decades ago in the Six Day War, Safa is caught in a limbo which she calls the ‘In-Between’. She is unable to fully pass on without knowing what happened to her younger sister, Nur, who is still alive somewhere. Thirty-three years after her death, the possibility of finding her is suddenly within reach – but she needs Dinah to help her.
Alternating between past and present, and between Safa and Dinah, Ever Land is a gripping and powerful story that sheds light on the ongoing occupation of Palestine. It is a tale of belonging and identity, of devastation and displacement and – ultimately – of the enduring universality of humanity and love.
Amy Abdelnoor is a British Arab writer and English teacher. She studied English and Arabic at the University of Cambridge. Wanting to reconnect with her Arab heritage, (her maternal grandfather was Lebanese), she lived and worked in the West Bank and in refugee camps in Lebanon in her early twenties. These experiences inspired Ever Land, her debut novel, an early iteration of which was shortlisted for the 2023 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. She is married with three children.
The photograph taken in 2002 shows the sabir cactus plants growing over the remains of the village of Suhammata, northern occupied Palestine. Zionist militia groups raised the village to the ground in the nakba 1948, forcibly expelling its inhabitants who - along with 750,000 Palestinians - became refugees from their homes and homeland.