Miral, a story of a young girl’s growing up amid the intifada in a Jerusalen of the 1980s, is a novel written by Rula Jebreal. Miral was growing up, emotionally, physically and politically, amid the resistance, worsening political situation, and struggles of daily life, while her homeland was occupied.
The novel links back to 1948, where a philanthropist Hind Husseini creates a shelter for children so that some destruction from first Arab-Israeli war can be compensated in some respect. This is the shelter where Miral, along with her younger sister Rania, end up living after the tragic suicide of their mother, Nadia. Nadia was an alcoholic, who was repeatedly raped in her childhood, and has been in prison once. Nadia’s husband, father of Miral and Rania, is an imam at al-Aqsa and pays his daughters weekend visits in the school.
Miral becomes increasingly involved with the political resistance when she sees the effects of Israeli occupation and their campaigns against intifada. She draws closer to popular political fronts and eventually chooses to join the struggle for Liberation of Palestine. The choice Miral has made adds to the stress of her family as well as her school. The path Miral has taken offered her resistance from family and Hind Husseini, hence, she was forced to make a decision to choose between joining the resistance movement and her education. Miral’s radicalism is finally tamed by the influence of Hind and Miral’s friendship with and Israeli socialist, and she chooses to pursue her studies.
Miral’s main focus is on the lives of women who blossom and move forward in life, while the political climate was instable and lives were disturbed by the occupation. The novel tells of the militants, the pious, those who are constantly affected by the Israeli occupation and those who are politically indifferent. Rula has ruined the effect by purposefully explaining what was she intending to convey rather than letting the readers infer themselves what they want to.
Rula Jabreal has highlighted her personal political believes and portrayed Arab women as they are depicted in a Western perception. All the women in novel are sexually expressive, losing the fetters of traditions broken, which is quite unreal. The novel, in some parts, had an altered theme of standing against the controlling men rather than the original theme of women struggling through in the time of occupation. Miral is the Rula Jabreal’s real life experience while she was growing up an orphanage for Palestinian children.
The author, Rula Jabreal, is a successful Italo-Palestinian journalist.
Keywords: Miral, Rula Jabreal, Palestine, Israel, women, occupation, resistance.
