Vanished by Ahmed Masoud is an eye-opening fiction of unsettling reality in Gaza. The novel, based on life in Gaza under the siege of the Israeli soldiers, is an intriguing and captivating novel, already nominated for the Memo Palestine Book Award. Gaza became a zone of conflict and has been under surveillance for a long time. The world witnesses its destruction through media reports without understanding. Vanished takes the reader inside the Gaza strip to bear witness to the reality of the lives of people who live with destruction all around them in a sensitive and humane way that newsrooms and articles couldn’t!
The story unfolds with young Omar’s sudden decision to go to war affected Gaza in 2014, leaving behind his wife Zoe and four-year-old son Mustafa in London. As the dangers of his trip sink in, “What if anything happened …?” he decides his son should know his life and understand why he was making this journey. He starts writing even as he is waiting or travelling! The novel jostles back and forth between the narrative of young Omar and his childhood self in the backdrop of politics and war in Gaza!
What begins as an eight-year old’s query to find his missing father, quickly turns into a tumultuous saga of violation, violence, abuse, betrayal, and destruction that robs the innocence of a child and forces him to grow up faster. Raped by the Israeli general Uri whom he dared to investigate, Omar is isolated and silenced in his guilt, forced to collaborate with the enemy, and spy on his own people who resisted the Israeli occupation! The novel delves deep into the psyche of a child in a conflict zone, the terrible impact of a pointed gun, and the emotional trauma of spying on his people which leads to the killing of innocents!
The novel offers a nuanced representation of the life of Palestinians living in Jabala Camp in houses meant to be a temporary shelter “following events of 1948.” How Omar would walk on “littered streets” to Al- Fakhoura Primary school for boys with “Men scattered on the side of the road, sometimes playing backgammon, or smoking shisha.” Even among curfews and gunshots, people love and care for each other and celebrate with lots of food! Omar’s friend and sidekick Ahmed who investigates his father’s disappearance along with him, embodies the beautiful bond of friendship! Ahmed brings joy and shawarma sandwiches to Omar in the hospital! Thereafter, Ahmed goes missing for more than a week.Palestinian women in the Jabala Camp cook, serve and love their families with grim awareness. Life is transitory, more so in conflict zones like Gaza where school kids get caught up in sudden shower of bullets, with no shelter: “The gentleness of the day was shattered by the gunfire”.
Will Omar make it out of the Israeli trap? Would the resistance workers forgive him? What would Uri do now? As the Israelis strike peace talks with Palestine, there is change of charge. Lives of people alter from fear, to temporary relief and normalcy returns briefly. However, peace is short lived as the Palestinians are divided in opinion. Omar sees how power corrupts! Palestine Preventive Security forces traumatize their own people. It becomes increasing difficult to call out friend from foe.
Fresh leads emerge in Omar’s search for his father. Some truths make better homes in silence! Will Omar find his father? Every time he questioned his mother, she gave him the same scripted answer but “…. she could not hide the wild fear in her eyes.” Mystery gets sinister; there is gunshot! He escapes to London leaving everything behind!
The narrative grows mysterious; the reader is swamped with family secrets, political tension, betrayal, jostling with resilience and identity. Given the action-oriented nature of the narrative, the novel gives some insight into the characters of Um Marwa, Uncle Attiyad, Zoe, though it could have given more perspective on his mother, Ahmed and Father.
Masaud’s style is lucid and simple with images and symbols woven into the narrative that bring alive the Gaza Strip and its repressed life!Masoud employs interior monologues to depict the psychological realism of a child in conversation with himself or his missing father.The novel’s structure is unique as author uses two narrative voices and two fonts to demarcate between the two, using flash back technique. At times the emotional rollercoaster overrides the narrative and one has to come back to get the facts and datescorrect.
Masoud counters the dreary images of Gaza that spill over the media as a vast stretch of debris and rubble by recreating the colours and smells of trees, fruits and food, “…. smell of cacti and oranges very powerful”, “smell of freshly fried falafel or roasted sweet corn”. Masoud has a penchant for smells and an almost Keatsean quality in his poetic language and creation of images with synesthetic elements! As Keats in ‘Ode on a Grecian’ describes “the little town” now “emptied of this folk”, Omar describes the streets of Gaza, “with kids playing and men sitting outside on small chairs, playing cards and drinking coffee” “deserted” under curfew.
The book is extremely relevant and a must read as it gives an inside view of the devastation and challenges of the lives of Gazans, making it a universal tale of human suffering under military siege, throttling of trust in most intimate relations and power struggles to control and oppress fellow humans!
The book brings alive the subtle emotions of a child and the characters in their fears, joys and vulnerabilities! It is a gripping and compelling read that takes one into a world that connects with the reader at the level of humanity beyond the bounds of religion and nationality!It leaves one wanting for more from Masoud for its freshness and emotionality that are increasingly lacking in the digitized world! Vanished is a nuanced blend of emotion, mystery, military action, mistakes, betrayal, resilience and love!
You can purchase the book here.