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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW WITH ITAMAR SN, WHITE SMOKE by W.A. Muller White Smoke by author and Middle East scholar Itamar SN is a new Tel-Avivian-based family love story that appeals to a number of different audiences because of its expertly written account of politics, women's rights, and modern-day relationships between Israelis and Palestinians. Itamar, why do you think Jewish readers are responding so strongly to the Yonatan character and his relationship with his powerful father in White Smoke “I tried desperately to appear in any newspaper report or television news channel footage of the “delusional lefties,” to cause him to be a little aggravated, a little embarrassed.”-Yonatan Yonatan never had a functioning father. He had Israel’s Chief of staff and then the Prime Minister as an absent father. He tried all his life to become 44
the apple farthest from the tree, but he’s about to find out himself that it is not easy to choose between the love for your family and the love for your country. His husband (Meir) and their adopted young Palestinian, acid attack victim woman (Amal), becomes both his compass and his greatest challenge. Welcome to the world of Yonatan, Meir, and Amal. LGBTQ readers have also expressed great appreciation for your realistic portrayal of a gay married couple in modern-day Israel. “I had met Meir only a few months ago, but this rich, capitalist, motherf*cker had turned my world and its old comfortable order upside down, and without warning.” -Yonatan Yonatan Green is an intellectual playboy, who will do anything to provoke his right-wing father, the Prime Minister of Israel. When he meets Meir, he falls in love for the
Metropolitan Magazine | 25AMagazine.com
first time. The bi-sexual, ‘Don Juan’ who has never been able to commit, is becoming the head of an unorthodox family of six. The Powerful gay couple adopts and rescues Amal, a young Palestinian woman who suffered an acid attack, from a blind alley future. It will not take long for her to become the pillar of the family. Welcome to the world of Yonatan, Meir, and Amal. This book also addresses the continuing brutalization of women in the Middle East, including acid attacks. Which gives the book its name, White Smoke “I miss you more than anything in the world.” Said her mother...” “I feel like my heart was taken from me when you left. I am a woman with no heart.” “And I am a woman with no face,” Amal responded, instantly bringing down a bitter cold silence over the room.”-Excerpt from White Smoke
Unimaginably, many of the yearly acid attack crimes in the world are executed by women against women, mostly by the mother-in-law who believes her daughter-in-law is not good enough as a wife for her son. Lineages of oppressed women pass the wrongdoing from mother to daughter. It’s time to wake up. Despite her facial deformity due to a horrific acid attack, Amal is an incredibly strong woman, and inspiration, who with the help of Yonathan and Meir becomes a profile in courage. It wasn’t a surprise that it was a powerful gay couple who came for the rescue of an acid attack victim young woman. It was also not a surprise that Amal, the alpha lioness took charge of her new family when everything collapsed.
