The Image, the Icon, and the CovenantDocumenting a historic struggle with fresh vision, Sahar Khalifeh has penned what is at once a re casting of the story of the Holy Family, a lyrical ode to Arab Jerusalem, and a call for liberation, not just of a nation but of its individual women and men. After abandoning his beloved Mariam when she falls pregnant, and escaping her brothers bullets, Ibrahim abandons his own ideals and dreams of becoming a fiction writer, opting instead to follow the