Sayed Kashua - Let It Be Morning

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year

Books like this one, books that tell the stories of war through the eyes of children, are the textbooks for future generations. They carry the cultural information, those memes that are missing from conventional, nonfiction accounts.

Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

Kashua can be equally unsparing when it comes to the anti-Semitism that pervades the Muslim community and the inequities that plague Arab-Israeli culture[and] succeeds admirably in creating a protagonist adrift between two worlds, neither of which, tragically, can sustain him.

Andrew Furman, The Miami Herald

An impressive debut novel[that] stares unflinchingly at the many ugly realities on both sides of an eternal national crisis, and the result is a bracingly candid lamentation.

The Baltimore Sun

Kashuas prose (translated from the Hebrew with great panache by Miriam Shlesinger) has a manic verve to it. This sly and caustic noveldelivers an on-the-ground sense of being an Arab in Israel that you couldnt get from any news report. Its collision of headline realities with domestic worries is right on targetand its eye for the logistics of daily life in intifada-era Israel is wickedly double-edged.

Michael Upchurch, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

An amazing work of fiction that has integrity and beauty. It rises above the polemics of that searing conflict and renders the life of that land with a touch of humanity. An astonishing achievement.

Fouad Ajami

Gritty and agileOn any given day, Kashuas narrator may daydream of becoming the first Arab prime minister, bringing peace and love to the region, or embracing militant Islam and blowing up Israeli soldiers at a local intersectiononly to do neither. As a portrait of a young mans drift into emotional no-mans-land, this novel has the feel of grim truth.

Charles Wilson, The New York Times Book Review

In its moving and mordantly funny depiction of a life lived on the margins of a fundamentally inhospitable society, Dancing Arabs introduces humanity where politics has failed. A grim but affecting debut.

Gabriel Saunders, Time Out New York

Kashuas fallible, nameless antihero (and alter ego) presents a deeply personal view of an intractable conflict.

The Washington Post

As Americans we often see the situation in Israel in extremes. We are either condemning suicide bombers and angry settlers or praising idealistic culture-exchange programs; Dancing Arabs offers us a land without heroes or villains, and mocks our pitying tears.[Kashuas] deadpan innocence makes Dancing Arabs a personal take on the endless divide between Jews and Arabs in Israelboth hugely entertaining and unexpectedly disturbing.

Jade Chang, LA Weekly

This literary jewel of a debut novel from an Arab-Israeli expresses what it means to be a hyphenated citizen in Israel today. One doesnt find hate or venom in [Kashuas] writing. The story takes many twists and turns, with some interesting surprises, and makes a delightful summertime read.

Aharon Ben Anshel, The Jewish Press

Sayed Kashua looks courageously at harsh realities in blunt, sardonic prose whose nuances are rendered perfectly by Miriam Shlesinger. The story stands out for its courage and originality.

P. David Hornik, The Jerusalem Post

Dancing Arabs is a tenderly written, honest portrayal of Israeli-Arab society. Sayed Kashua is an unusually gifted storyteller with exceptional insight. How unfortunate that so few leaders possess the same clarity of vision and longing for peace.

Atara Beck, The Jewish Tribune (Canada)

Provides a devastating yet understated picture of what its like to live in Israel today, for an apolitical (at first) Israeli Arab who looks more Israeli than the average Israeli. Most of us dont know enough about Israeli Arabs and the nature of their lives. In a resigned manner, Kashua tells us. His portraits stay with you long after the book is finished.

Jewish Currents

Dancing Arabs is a book that will make you cry. It is honest and funny and unbearably believable. The warm and interested reception by the Israeli public and press is an acknowledgment that this important story must be read. Here, too, we should all read Dancing Arabs .

Esther Cohen, Naamat Woman

Slyly subversiveThe hopelessness of [the protagonists] life is offset by Kashuas deadpan, understated humor. A chilling, convincing tale.

Publishers Weekly

RemarkableKashuas debut is as much about family relationships as it is about familiar political challenges. Despite its dark prognosis, there is a lightness and dry humor that lifts it with the kind of wings its protagonist once hoped for.

Booklist

[Kashuas] story rings out on every page with a compelling sense of human truth.

Kirkus Reviews