Abulhawa, Susan

The Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa was born in a refugee camp in Kuwait. As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel seized the last remaining Palestinian areas, her parents first ended up in a refugee camp in Jordan and later moved on to Kuwait. Their marriage broke up shortly afterwards, and Susan went to live with various relatives in Jordan and Kuwait. When she was ten she lived in an orphanage in occupied Jerusalem before ending up with foster parents in North Carolina without knowing a word of English. Her education was "brutal", but she learned the language and graduated with a degree in biology from Pfeiffer University and an MA in biomedicine from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. She has worked as a researcher, consultant and she has contributed to medical journals.