No One Knows Their Blood Type
Book Review by Dana Al Shahbari
I met Hazem Jamjoum – the translator of Maya Abu Al-Hayyat’s No One Knows Their Blood Type – in London on a Sunday. Jamjoum handed me a fresh copy of the book in English, and it turned out to be the kind of book that, once you start reading, you simply can’t put down until finished in one sitting.
In her novel No One Knows Their Blood Type originally published in Arabic in 2013, author Maya Abu Al-Hayyat defies the expectations of a typical Palestinian novel. This is not a tale of heroic, sacrificial figures rising above the complexities of daily life and identity. Instead, it delves into the conflicted inner worlds of female characters whose journeys take in unexpected directions. The story begins in medias res: the central protagonist Jumana learns after her father’s death that he may not be her biological father— a possibility suggested by their differing blood types: hers is AB+, his was O+.
This discovery unsettles Jumana, raising more questions to her than answers in a complex web of family, culture, and nationhood. If her father is not her father and her biological roots lie with her mother’s Lebanese lover, does this mean she’s not even Palestinian? Jumana contemplates a DNA test and is torn about whether such a test could truly resolve her questions of identity. "Can a questionnaire definitively prove, or disprove, such a thing?" Joumana wonders, making us all wonder with her. From the outset, it’s clear that Al-Hayyat is not interested in crafting characters that embody idealized notions of Palestinian heroism or martyrdom. Jumana, like the other women in the novel, is not the archetypal heroine. She’s flawed, often confused, and sometimes paralyzed by self-doubt and memories that span her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Her life unfolds across fragmented geographies in Jerusalem, Amman, Tunis, and Beirut. And in each of these settings, a different facet of her identity and relations with others is revealed.
Perhaps what is most striking about No One Knows Their Blood Type is its resistance to cast its characters in a single, fixed Palestinian mold. Neither Jumana nor any other character is depicted as a flawless figure. Instead, they’re deeply human, flawed, and fully dimensional. The mothers in this story aren’t symbolic “mothers of the nation”, they are simply themselves, with their own complex emotions and motives as they navigate unromanticized and diverse paths of motherhood. Similarly, the fathers, aunts, and other family members are depicted not as paragons of resilience but as individuals whose actions and choices are often ambiguous. It’s in these moments of ambiguity and imperfection that the readers are drawn into the characters’ lives in ways that feel intimate and genuine.
The question of “return” hovers in the background of the novel, and the young women in this novel , unlike in other works, display a certain indifference toward it. Jumana and her elder sister, Yara, don’t understand the fervor surrounding a return to Palestine, especially since they found a sense of home in Tunis. For Yara, leaving behind a teenage crush for the distant, abstract dream of return feels not only unrelatable, but almost resentful. Yet despite this seeming ambivalence, the novel never loses sight of the historical and political forces that shape its characters’ lives. Set against the backdrop of key events such as the Israeli invasion and the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, the narrative weaves these historical markers into the characters’ lives without dwelling on them in detail. These events aren’t over-explained: the reader is given just enough context to spark curiosity without being overwhelmed by exposition. By keeping the focus on the bodies, language, and everyday lives of women, the novel brings the impact of colonialism into focus, allowing the political to surface and resurface in intimate layers of their being.
Ultimately, this is a novel that will stay with every reader. It urges us to question our own assumptions about histories, the stories we tell about who we are, and the labels that define us. Through Jumana and her family, Al-Hayyat masterfully challenges us to rethink what it means to be Palestinian and pushes us toward a world where Palestinians are not confined to a single story – they simply cannot and should not have to. Through the fragmentation of family bonds and ever-shifting identities, the book beautifully captures the diversity of Palestinianness, with all its similarities, complexities, and contradictions.
