Saturday Review: “History Is in Your Veins: Etaf Rum Examines Healing from Generational Trauma,” a review by Olivia Cash of Etaf Rum’s Evil Eye: A Novel (2025) in NCLR Online Spring 2026
Returning reviewer Olivia Cash finds herself in the throws of Etaf Rum’s newest work of introspective cultural literature, as she reviews her novel, Evil Eye. Cash writes that Rum’s piece, “…is a thoughtful examination of how cross-generational trauma and cross-cultural experiences shape the self in ways that are deeply rooted in the past.”
The novel follows Yara, a woman of Palestinian descent, who is caught in the ever-encroaching burden of cultural and generational trauma, set about by things like her grandmother’s forced migration and her mother’s own immigration to America. Through this, Yara’s seemingly perfect life finds itself disrupted in a number of ways, resulting in a very personal, very raw, search for healing. She pursues this in myriad ways, like with her relationship with food and food instructor, Silas. Of it, Cash writes that, “Silas and Yara are able to form a connection through a genuine interest in and appreciation of each other’s culinary skills and the similarities and differences in which they each approach the task of feeding others.”
Cash ends her review with, “Ultimately, the readers may or may not be able to anticipate the revelation at the end of the novel, but either way it is narratively satisfying and cuts to the heart of Rum’s questions about how culture, generational trauma, and family relationships both define and defy self-formation.”
Read the entire review here and buy a copy of Evil Eye: A Novel from Bookshop.org.
