Book Description

Wafa Aisha’s parents emigrated to Australia from the war torn West Bank to start a better life. Wafa is an aspiring actor whose goals after leaving school are to escape the clutches of her strict Muslim parents and to secure a lead role in a film. David Miller is a Sydney filmmaker whose production company is floundering. One day, out of the blue, he is approached by a white knight who offers him a large sum of money to make a film depicting Middle Eastern culture. When Wafa gets an opportunity to star in this production, she truly believes that fame and stardom have come knocking at her door. Coaxed into travelling to the West Bank by Rayad, the white knight who is bankrolling the film, she is tricked into marrying him. Feeling trapped and with no one to turn to, her instinct is to run. But Rayad has her passport as well as her mobile phone. Without these things, escaping this war-torn land seems almost impossible. In desperation, she assumes a new identity and joins the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, caring for wounded soldiers, all the while trying to figure out a way to somehow get back to Australia. Never in her wildest dreams could Wafa have imagined the obstacles she would have to face and the desperate measures she would need to take in order to achieve what she so desperately wants. Along the way, she becomes a member of Hamas and briefly works as a drug mule in order to get money. To complicate matters, she falls in love with a young soldier and has to decide whether to stay with the man of her dreams or continue her quest to return home. Juggling her confusing feelings becomes an overpowering emotion, which might just end up breaking her. ‘A Million Times through the War Zone’ is a story of survival and never giving up on what you desperately want, no matter what life throws at you.