If we are to believe the narratives and the characters in this set of interlinked short stories, then we all yearn equally for love and, moreover, we are all equally far from love. This slim volume, set in current-day Palestine, includes a number of forlorn and unfulfilled women, and men, who are lonesome and long for love and union with a significant other.

The young girl in the first story is terribly alone and leads a monotonous, perfunctory existence, by her own admission. When she receives a letter in response to a written query, she is immediately touched by the warmth and the kindness she perceives in it. Her boredom is suddenly curtailed by the promise of more letters and some level of intimacy with a real, breathing person. The letters provide something to look forward to and she falls in love with the writer and misses him, although they have never met.

Another teenager, Afaaf, lacks love at home and hates her life so much that she entertains thoughts of killing her father and his wife. Her unhappy mother had departed from her inattentive, verbally abusive husband leaving the young girl to fend for herself. Afaaf works in a Post Office and routinely opens the letters that pass through her hands, reading and rereading them so frequently that she memorises the romantic passages in them.

In another story, a young man "longed to touch someone and feel the warmth of a human body in real life, not just in his dreams." Shibli's characters are incredibly lonely and are deprived of meaningful relationships. Many of them are so open to the idea that they fall in love the minute they meet someone of the opposite gender.

Palestinian-born Shibli has twice been awarded the Qattan Foundation's Young Writers Award. Hers is a brave new voice that breaks with tradition. No longer do we find Arab women confined to their homes and kitchens. Shibli's women work outside of their homes, they smoke, they drive themselves around—notions previously unheard of in the Arab novel. Furthermore, her stories also show men seeking the same meaningful connections as women. This makes for a pleasant and interesting change. But none of her characters are happy or fulfilled. In fact, most of them are downright morose.

Shibli's writing is subtle and nuanced. I loved Touch, her first novella. It was a slim but exquisitely poetic and powerful volume. This is a similarly graceful and meaningful selection that probes the deeply-felt sense of isolation and the cavernous desires of individuals. It provides food for thought and I, for one, will seek out further offerings from this interesting and obviously talented author.

Read an excerpt of We Are All Equally Far From Love in Belletrista's previous issue