Both were trapped in a machinery larger than themselves
In Julia Navarro's novel 'De ninguna parte,' two young men — one an Israeli soldier, the other an Arab orphaned by that same soldier's operation — are carried by the currents of inherited violence toward an inevitable collision in Brussels. Neither Jacob nor Abir chose the roles history assigned them, yet both are consumed by consequences they did not author. The novel, published in 2021, holds up the Middle East conflict not as a political abstraction but as a human machinery that grinds ordinary lives into weapons, asking quietly whether any of us — on any side — are truly free to choose otherwise.
- A single military operation in Lebanon kills a family in the early morning hours, orphaning two boys and igniting a vow of revenge that will take fifteen years to detonate.
- With no one to protect them, Abir and his brother Ismail are handed over to a jihadist cell by the only family member who remains — not out of cruelty, but out of a desperate belief that this is the only future available.
- Jacob cannot sleep: a child's screaming voice haunts his nights, and he carries the weight of a chain of events he set in motion but cannot stop.
- Abir rises through the ranks of the organization, earning respect and trust, yet privately he wants to live — a contradiction the ideology he serves has no room for.
- Fifteen years after Lebanon, the two men meet again in Brussels amid the wreckage of a terrorist attack, and the novel forces its readers to sit with questions the conflict itself refuses to answer: who is responsible, and what are any of us doing to stop it?
Julia Navarro's 'De ninguna parte' begins with a catastrophic military operation in Lebanon. Israeli forces raid a home in search of a jihadist leader named Sheikh Mohsin. In the chaos, Abir — fourteen years old — watches his mother, father, and younger sister Dunya die. He raises his fist and swears vengeance. Jacob, the Israeli soldier present that night, will spend the next fifteen years unable to sleep, haunted by the sound of a child's voice promising to kill them all.
What follows is the story of two men shaped entirely by a moment neither chose. Abir and his younger brother Ismail, orphaned and adrift, are handed over to Sheikh Mohsin's terrorist cell by their uncle, who sees no other future for them. No one asks the children. Abir rises through the organization, earns the trust of its leaders, and prepares himself for the role they have in mind for him — a role that ends in his own death. Yet beneath the ideology and the rhetoric, he wants to live. That contradiction never resolves.
Jacob is equally trapped. He did not choose to be a soldier, did not choose to set in motion the events that orphaned Abir, but he carries the consequences regardless — in his nightmares, in his guilt, in the knowledge that the chain he started is still moving.
Fifteen years later, the two men meet again in Brussels, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. The promise made by a fourteen-year-old boy is finally being kept. Navarro structures the novel around this collision, and around the questions it raises: Does it matter who started it? What is harder — to die or to kill? What are we doing to stop this nightmare?
Published in 2021 by Penguin Random House, 'De ninguna parte' is a meditation on how violence reproduces itself — through trauma passed from one generation to the next, through desperation, through the simple and terrible fact that some people are never given the chance to be anything other than what their circumstances demand of them.
Julia Navarro's novel "De ninguna parte" opens with a simple, devastating question: what happens when two young men on opposite sides of an endless war discover they are bound together by the same moment of violence? Jacob is an Israeli soldier haunted by a military operation in Lebanon that went catastrophically wrong. Abir is the orphaned Arab boy who watched his family die in that same operation. Fifteen years later, they will meet again in Brussels, amid the smoke of a terrorist attack, and the circle will close.
The novel traces how circumstance, not choice, transforms ordinary people into soldiers and extremists. Jacob never wanted to be in the Israeli army. He carries the weight of a recurring nightmare—the voice of a child screaming promises of revenge—that won't let him sleep. That voice belongs to Abir, who was fourteen years old when Israeli forces stormed his home in the early morning hours, searching for a jihadist leader named Sheikh Mohsin. In the chaos of gunfire, Abir's mother, father, and younger sister Dunya were killed. His mother fell. His sister's head struck the ground and began to bleed while their mother screamed. Abir watched it happen. He raised his fist and swore he would kill them all.
What happens next is the machinery of radicalization grinding forward. Abir and his younger brother Ismail, now orphaned at fourteen and twelve, had nowhere to go. Their uncle, their only remaining family, made a choice for them: he gave them to Sheikh Mohsin's terrorist cell. It was, he believed, the only future available to two boys adrift in the wreckage of their lives. No one asked the children if they wanted this. They had no say in the matter. Abir became a foot soldier in the jihadist organization, eventually rising to become one of the sheikh's trusted lieutenants. He was proud of this trust, proud that the men respected him, but the pride came at a cost. He was expected to show courage without hesitation, to prove his devotion to the cause, to prepare himself for the day he would die for it.
Yet beneath the ideology and the rhetoric about holy war and the depravity of the West, Abir harbored a contradiction that would not resolve. He wanted to live. He loved life, even as he was being molded into a weapon, even as the group's leaders spoke of the need for brothers willing to die in the final battle, even as he understood that his role would eventually demand his own death. He was trapped between the desire for vengeance—which burned in him like a physical thing—and the simple human wish to exist, to have a future, to belong somewhere.
Jacob was trapped in a different way, but equally. He had not chosen to be a soldier. He had not chosen to be the instrument of the violence that orphaned Abir. But he carried the consequences anyway, in his nightmares, in his inability to sleep, in the knowledge that his actions had set in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to his own death. Both men were warriors without having chosen to be warriors. Both were caught in a machinery larger than themselves, unable to change their pasts and unable to see a way out of them.
Navarro's novel is structured around this collision. Fifteen years after the operation in Lebanon, Jacob and Abir encounter each other again, this time in Europe, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Brussels. The promise Abir made as a fourteen-year-old boy—that he would kill them all—is finally being kept. The novel asks its readers a series of questions that cut to the heart of the conflict itself. Jacob asks: "Does it matter who started this? The question is what is happening now, and what are we doing to stop this nightmare?" Ismail asks his brother Abir: "What is harder—to die or to kill?" These are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions that the Middle East conflict itself cannot answer.
Navarro, an accomplished Spanish writer and journalist, has written a novel that reads like it was torn from the pages of current events, yet it is entirely fictional. The narrative skill is evident from the first line. The story illuminates much of what remains incomprehensible about this brutal war that seems to have no end, where both sides are enslaved to their own beliefs and ideas. The two protagonists are, in the truest sense, from nowhere. Displacement has transformed them into strangers to themselves and to everyone around them. They are wounded souls caught in an endless conflict, unable to find their place in the world. The novel was published in 2021 by Penguin Random House, and it stands as a meditation on how violence perpetuates itself through inherited trauma, through desperation, through the simple fact that some people are never given the choice to be anything other than what their circumstances demand.
Citas Notables
Does it matter who started this? The question is what is happening now, and what are we doing to stop this nightmare?— Jacob, in the novel
What is harder—to die or to kill?— Ismail, asking his brother Abir
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does Navarro choose to make both characters unwilling combatants rather than true believers?
Because that's closer to the truth of how these conflicts actually work. Most people don't wake up wanting to be soldiers or terrorists. They're pushed into it by circumstance, by loss, by the fact that there's no other door open to them.
But doesn't that risk making them seem like victims rather than responsible for their own choices?
It does, and that's exactly the tension the novel sits in. They are both victims and agents. Abir chose to become a lieutenant in the cell, but he was a child when he made that choice, and he was making it in the only language available to him—the language of revenge.
The nightmare Jacob has—the voice screaming that he'll be killed—that's Abir's voice, isn't it?
Yes. It's the voice of the boy he orphaned, speaking to him across fifteen years. Jacob can't escape it because he's never actually confronted what he did. He just carries it in his sleep.
And when they meet again in Brussels, what happens?
The novel doesn't give you a neat answer to that. It leaves you with the questions instead. What do you do when the person you've been running from your whole life finally catches up to you?
So the novel is really asking: how do we break these cycles?
Yes. And it's suggesting that we can't break them by pretending they don't exist, or by choosing a side and staying there. Both men are trapped in the same machinery, just on different ends of it.