Salt Houses

Spanning fifty years, Salt Houses is a devastating and lyrical debut about one family in the wake of war, about needing to remember, and learning to forget.

‘A piercingly elegant novel … with the power to both break and mend your heart.’ Ru Freeman, author of On Sal Mal Lane

‘Epic in scope and uniquely relevant in its concern for displacement. Particularly well-suited for our times, then.’ Red

Where do you go when you can’t go home?

On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs.

Although she keeps her predictions to herself that day, they soon come to pass in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Caught up in the resistance, Alia’s brother disappears, while Alia and her husband move from Nablus to Kuwait City. Reluctantly they build a life, torn between needing to remember and learning to forget.

When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, Alia and her family yet again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it. Scattering to Beirut, Paris and Boston, Alia’s children begin families of their own, once more navigating the burdens and blessings of beginning again.