India, May 6 -- What was the genesis of the novel's central theme?

The main theme is the disappearance of Palestinians from all of historic Palestine and the way Israeli society, like any settler colonial society, will deal with and react to the disappearance of this "enemy." However, as a Palestinian writer, I did not want my novel to be consumed solely with how to deconstruct the founding myths of a colonial society. I also wanted to centre the Palestinian narrative through Alaa's journal and his grandmother's stories. The novel is engaged with the choices that characters make and it tries to explore the psychology of colonialism. It also holds a mirror to historical events in which the majority of Palestinians, more than 750,000, were...