Synopsis:

A vivid and beautifully crafted chronicle of an exile's return to Palestine.

 

Summoned by his dying mother, Palestinian-born Aziz Shihab returns to the homeland he and his family fled as refugees decades earlier: to a Palestine reclaimed by Israelis and to a country no longer that of his youth in a nation whose estate has been challenged by history. This gripping book chronicles that month-long journey.

 

Part memoir, part travelogue, it reveals the complexities of leaving behind such the past and coming to grips with its abandonment. With his sharp ear for dialogue and with a journalist's eye, Shihab records and considers, sometimes with fond humor, the Palestinian psyche. Family meetings brim with soothing time-honored ritual and cultural blindness. Pungent street anecdotes resonate with profound themes like human rights, land dislocation, and poverty. Shihab's stories of departure and return, loss of land and reconnection provide enriching insights into the depth and intricacy of Palestinian culture and history and its legacy of displacement.

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Topics/Categories:

Family, Palestine, The Middle East

Type of Work:

Book

Publishers:

Syracuse University Press

Purchase From:

amazon.com
barnesandnoble.com

Original Publish Date:

May 30, 2007

Formats and associated ISBNs:

0815608624 978-0815608622

Formats:

Hardcover

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