No Land to Light on (by Yara Zgheib)

(Amazon UK link)

I had never heard of Yara Zgheib and most likely would not have come across her book ‘No Land to Light on’ in the normal course of events. But it was allocated for this month’s local reading group, so I put it on my wishlist earlier in the year and was given it for my birthday.

It’s a very striking book. It features a married couple who have been separated by unexpected circumstances. The story opens at the end of January 2017. A six-months pregnant young Syrian woman called Sama is waiting in an airport in the United States. It’s crowded, and she’s too warm, and very tired but she wants to surprise her husband Hadi… 

However, Hadi is not emerging from the arrivals gate. Sama manages to contact him by phone and he tells her to go home - he’s not able to get out, because the rules have changed. He’s pretty sure he’ll be able to sort this out, but it may take some time. 

We know what the problem is because there’s a kind of mini prologue which tells us of a law enacted by the US President a day earlier, banning Syrians from entering the United States. However, Hadi isn’t an asylum seeker; he has a legal status, with papers to prove it, and a home and job. That’s not good enough for the bullying security staff who deal with him, and he becomes angry, which doesn’t help.

Then Sama realises she’s going into labour early, and someone calls an ambulance. She’s whisked away to an emergency room… 

There are then a series of flashbacks, dated to make it clear but still a tad confusing as the picture builds up. We see Hadi with his parents, a hot-headed young man who’s in trouble with the law in Syria, and likely to be killed if he’s caught. They love him very much, and know he has to leave the country. We also see his early forays into US society, the culture shock he experiences, and his first meeting with Sama. 

The writing is expert, the chapters short and terse, painting vivid images of Syrian life, both before and after the war that broke out in 2014. Sama has been in the United States rather longer than Hadi; she’s an academic who specialises in migratory birds. And there are some poignant quotations about migratory birds, with striking resemblances to the plight of people fleeing war and persecution. 

Interspersed with the background flashbacks, time moves forward for both Sama and Hadi, each dealing with their unexpected and stressful circumstances in different ways. There are some positive aspects, some not so encouraging; it all feels starkly realistic. No criticism of the government is made; no mention of which President who signed the devastating order which caused travel chaos although the date makes it obvious. But it’s a moving account of people condemned never to feel at home due to the place and cultures they were born in. 

I was a bit disappointed that there’s no real resolution at the end of the book. It’s not at all clear what’s going to happen; it’s positive and hopeful, but with no guarantees. And while I acknowledge that this is realistic, it means the book doesn’t feel conclusive. I had come to care about the characters, and was sorry not to know what was going to happen to them in the future. 

But overall, I thought it an excellent, thought-provoking read, one I would recommend to anyone wanting a better understanding of what it means to be a refugee. 

Review copyright 2023 Sue's Book Reviews