Out of Time: The Collected Short Stories of Samira Azzam

Short stories are not my preferred type of fiction, so as a reader I feel I am not often able to do them justice. I therefore expected to dip in and out of this slim volume over a longer period. Instead I found myself drawn into one after another over a single afternoon, and had to stop there in order to absorb what I'd read before contunuing (next day).

Palestinian writer Samira Azzam's stories, translated by Ranya Abdelrahman, are written in a simple style that makes them appear, at first glance, almost dreamily impressionistic. But there is no literary detachment, no self-amused whimsy. The characters flow from a pen inked with the blood of a painfully compassionate heart. The incidents are told in a vivid, honest, direct manner; several keep playing on repeat in my mind as I write this. The conclusion of The Passenger took my breath away with its gently humorous, emotional truth about being an empathetic human being. Another Year, which resonated on a personal level although my situation bears absolutely no resemblance to that of refugee families forcibly parted from each other, brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes even now. This collection, Out of Time, is a heartopener, my favourite type of book.