My First and Only Love (Ḥubbī al-Awwal) by Sahar Khalifeh
Date: Tuesday 6 October 2026
Time: 15:00–16:00
Place: OCEH Lab, 4th floor, P.A. Munchs hus, University of Oslo
This meeting opened the 2026–2027 season of the Al-Ard Book Club, inviting participants to read and discuss My First and Only Love by the Palestinian author Sahar Khalifeh (2021).
After decades of exile, Nidal returns to Nablus and confronts the memories of her youth, her family, and her first love, a Palestinian resistance fighter. A deeply poetic account of love and resistance, the novel intertwines personal memory with the history of the landscape of modern Palestine.
More about this event on the University of Oslo website
Al-Ard Book Club brings together readers from different backgrounds to read, share, and discuss works of Arabic literature that explore the intersections of environmental disruption, memory, displacement, and care for the land. The club is organised by the al-ARD research group at the Department of Culture, Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (IKOS), University of Oslo, which researches environmental care in the Middle East region. Masahat is a partner in al-ARD.