As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

Salama Kassab is the 18-year-old protagonist of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow. As the sole voice of the novel, her characterization deepens with raw emotions, thoughts, and actions that make her feel authentic and propel the plot. She is empathetic, shy, and smart, but also prone to fear and guilt; before the war, she strived to become a pharmacist and writer. Salama starts out fearful and guilt-ridden, but becomes more courageous through her experiences. She learns to defy her circumstances, have faith in her survival, pursue joy, and accept she’s done all in her power to help others. Her greatest challenge is overcoming fear, which surrounds her daily to the point of manifesting Khawf, a mental embodiment of fear. Salama’s mental health is affected by her head injury and PTSD, as she creates hallucinations to cope with her grief. As a medical student, she deduces the hallucinations are a means of survival.

When her sister-in-law and best friend Layla (who is married to her brother Hamza) is revealed as another hallucination, Salama’s mind is revealed to be powerful enough to conceal Layla’s death with happy memories: “For five months my mind has been spinning a fiction to keep my agony sealed away” (295).