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Salt Houses

Pages
336
Published
2017
Language
English

Synopsis

A multi-generational saga of a Palestinian family uprooted by war, displacement, and loss across decades — from their ancestral home in Jaffa through Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and beyond. Told through shifting perspectives over fifty years, it traces how each generation carries the scars of what came before while trying to build something new.

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About the author

H
Hala Alyan

Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American novelist and poet, best known for her debut novel Salt Houses. She writes about family, displacement, and home through both fiction and poetry. Her work also includes the novel The Arsonists' City and several collections of verse.

Characters

SalmaProtagonist

The family matriarch, whose life and marriage are uprooted by the 1967 war; her story spans decades of displacement.

AliaProtagonist
HussamSupporting

Salma's husband, a Palestinian man from Jaffa who is forced to leave his home and family after the Six-Day War.

All characters in Salt Houses
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