The Sunbird by Sara Haddad
“A strange hum sounded high in the sky and Nabila looked up at a bird she had never seen before. As she squatted to pick up a stone to throw into the water, she heard it and felt it and saw it all at once - the first of the bombs.”
Originally self-published to much acclaim, The Sunbird (2024) is an indie novella that has quickly captured the hearts and minds of thousands seeking to understand the Palestinian experience. Republished through UQP, Sara Haddad’s slim work charts the life of Nabila Yasmeen, a young girl in 1948 who had her first experience of a war that would continue to carve its lines through her life.
Haddad shares in her Author’s Note that The Sunbird is “necessarily brief, to counter the narrative that the question of Palestine is complicated, to be read in a single sitting, to be accessible to readers of all ages and all reading levels.” The story itself is only 74 pages, with a comprehensive postscript to further help readers understand the sequences of events that Nabila experiences right through to 2024. Opening in Palestine, December 1947, Haddad immediately draws us into six-year-old Nabila’s world, painting an evocative picture of her daily life, thoughts and feelings:
“Nabila had woken that morning, on this first day of winter, to a fire in the cavernous hearth. Refusing to budge from her place on the floor while all around her scurried and fussed, she stared, transfixed at the shimmering flames.”
Nabila is not yet old enough to attend the local school, but it doesn’t stop her from sneaking up to the classroom window, eager for the knowledge that the teacher she reveres imparts. On this day, though, she learns an unexpected lesson:
“He told the class that, on Monday, the United Nations (whatever that was) had passed something called Resolution 181. He talked of partition and special committees. Of welfare and friendly relations among nations. Of mandates and immigration and freedom of worship.”
Fast forward to Australia, 2023, we’re still with Nabila, this time an elderly woman in her eighties, as she once again goes about the start of her day. Again, there’s a deep sense of noticing, curiosity and an attachment to nature as there was for young Nabila:
“She listened for the koel’s call, its rhythmic whoop a testament to long days and warm nights… She had heard people complain about the koel but Nabila was soothed by its song and would sometimes anticipate its koo-eee, clapping her hands in delight if the birds managed to synchronise their calls.”
The rest of the narrative continues in this fashion, alternating between young Nabila during the Nakba of 1948, and present-day Nabila, with Haddad drawing parallels between her thoughts, feelings, experiences and memories. We meet young Nabila as a carefree, “troublesome” child, enjoying the freedoms of her closely connected family and community before it is taken away. Elder Nabila lives a more solitary life, spent mostly with her memories of her younger days:
“As if it were yesterday, she remembers the olive harvest, a time of pure, delicious happiness, when families came together to pick zaytoun and picnic under the trees. She sees the colourful rugs spread under the branches, the ladders propped against the trunks, and the sacks and buckets dotting the ground, ready for filling.”
This way of alternating between young and elder Nabila is a powerful way to show how far the current conflict goes into the past. Through the eyes of a child, it is easy to see, as Haddad shares in her Author’s Note, that there is nothing complicated about what Nabila has endured.
Many might be aware of how different media creates a warped sense of time, for example, publishing black and white photos in textbooks or news sites to create an impression that something happened longer ago than it did. For readers like myself who weren’t aware of the Israel-Palestine conflict before October 2023, novels like The Sunbird can offer a vital insight into the far-reaching but also intensely present impact of those who experienced the Nakba. Characters like Nabila can humanise people’s experiences, revealing that they aren’t something that happened to those in the distant past; these people exist within our communities now.
With the recent news of a ceasefire deal being reached, The Sunbird is also a sober reminder that this isn’t the first time history has repeated itself for Palestinians. And whatever comes next, the world must continue to demand justice:
“The protest route changed from week to week and today it took them past the designer shops…In other weeks they were flanked by the park, which Nabila preferred…she liked the other route better because it took them under the stone arch and for a couple of glorious minutes, as the voices coalesced and echoed an almighty cry of ‘Ceasefire Now! Ceasefire Now!, it was possible to believe that the whole world was contained within that space and everyone in it said, ‘Yes, I see now.’”
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
