As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a halal love story, but not just between two people—it’s also a love story between a girl and her country, a revolution, a memory, and a future worth fighting for. Written with lyrical beauty and brutal honesty, Zoulfa Katouh's debut novel transports readers into the heart of the Syrian civil war through the eyes of Salama Kassab, a pharmacy student turned volunteer medic. The story is woven around true events delving into human emotions behind the conflict.
Salama once had a family, dreams, and a home. But the war changed everything. She now spends her days surrounded by the wounded and dying, trying to save others while her own heart breaks a little more each day.
She is also haunted—literally—by her personified trauma, a hallucination named Khawf (Arabic for “fear”), who constantly reminds her of the dangers she faces and urges her to escape Syria with her pregnant sister-in-law, Layla.
Salama is torn: Should she stay and help her people, or flee and protect the last family she has left? Caught in this moral dilemma, she meets Kenan, a boy with a camera, hope in his eyes, and the courage to dream despite the bombs overhead. Their love is quiet, respectful—halal—and rooted in mutual care and resistance against despair.
As the story unfolds, Salama begins to question everything she thought she knew about the war, her future, and herself. Through flashbacks, hallucinations, and harrowing real-life events, we see the depth of her psychological scars, the weight of survivor’s guilt, and the impossible burden of hope.
A pivotal moment is when a young boy, dying looks up and says:
"I will tell God everything."
This chilling line captures the emotional truth of the book—a child, robbed of justice, places his trust in divine accountability. It’s a line that burns itself into the reader’s memory.
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