Going Home

Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh

In a dazzling mix of reportage, analysis, and memoir, the leading Palestinian writer of our time reflects on aging, failure, the occupation, and the changing face of Ramallah"Few P... show more ▼alestinians have opened their minds and their hearts with such frankness."—The New York Times In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize–winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day—the day that happens to be the fiftieth anniversary of Israel's occupation of the West Bank—the book is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city. Here is a city whose green spaces—gardens and hills crowned with olive trees— have been replaced by tower blocks and concrete lots; where the Israeli occupation has further entrenched itself in every aspect of movement, from the roads that can and cannot be used to the bureaucratic...

Read online

• 418

• Published: 2020

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I

Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh

A subtle psychological portrait of the author’s relationship with his father during the twentieth-century battle for Palestinian human rights.Aziz Shehadeh was many things: lawyer,... show more ▼ activist, and political detainee, he was also the father of bestselling author and activist Raja. In this new and searingly personal memoir, Raja Shehadeh unpicks the snags and complexities of their relationship. A vocal and fearless opponent, Aziz resists under the British mandatory period, then under Jordan, and, finally, under Israel. As a young man, Raja fails to recognize his father’s courage and, in turn, his father does not appreciate Raja’s own efforts in campaigning for Palestinian human rights. When Aziz is murdered in 1985, it changes Raja irrevocably. This is not only the story of the battle against the various oppressors of the Palestinians, but a moving portrait of a particular father and son relationship.

Read online

• 114

• Published: 2023

Where the Line is Drawn

Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh

As a young boy, Raja Shehadeh was entranced by a forbidden Israeli postage stamp in his uncle's album, intrigued by tales of a green land beyond the border. Impossible then to know... show more ▼ what Israel would come to mean to him, or to foresee the future occupation of his home in Palestine. Later, as a young lawyer, he worked to halt land seizures and towards peace and justice in the region, and made close friends with several young Israelis. But as life became increasingly unbearable under Occupation, and horizons shrank, it was impossible to escape politics or the past, and friendships and hopes were put to the test. Brave, intelligent and deeply controversial, in Where the Line is Drawn award-winning author Raja Shehadeh explores the devastating effect of Occupation on even the most intimate aspects of life. Looking back over decades of political turmoil, Shehadeh traces the impact on the fragile bonds of friendship across the Israel-Palestine border, and asks whether...

Read online

• 67

• Published: 2007

Shifting Sands

Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh

At a time when the Middle East dominates media headlines more than ever - and for reasons that become ever more heartbreaking - Shifting Sands brings together fifteen impassioned a... show more ▼nd informed voices to talk about a region with unlimited potential, and yet which can feel, as one writer puts it, 'as though the world around me is on fire'?Collecting together the thoughts and insights of writers who live or have deep roots in there, Shifting Sands takes a look at aspects of the Middle East from the catastrophic long-term effects of the carving up of the region by the colonial powers after World War One to the hopes and struggles of the Arab spring in relation to Egypt, Iran and Syria. And it asks questions such as: what is it like to be a writer in the Middle East? What does the future hold? And where do we go from here? For all those who are wearied by the debates surrounding the Middle East - often at best ill-informed and at worst, defeatist propaganda - this intelligent, reasoned perspective on life in the Middle East is a breath of fresh air.**

Read online

• 54

• Published: 2015

Palestinian Walks

Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh

Over two decades of turmoil and change in the Middle East, steered via the history-soaked landscape of Palestine. This new edition includes a previously unpublished epigraph in the... show more ▼ form of a walk.When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was travelling through a vanishing landscape. These hills would have seemed familiar to Christ, until the day concrete was poured over the flora and irreversible changes were brought about by those who claim a superior love of the land.Six walks span a period of twenty-six years, in the hills around Ramallah, in the Jerusalem wilderness and through the ravines by the Dead Sea. Each walk takes place at a different stage of Palestinian history since 1982, the first in the empty pristine hills and the last amongst the settlements and the wall. The reader senses the changing political atmosphere as well as the physical transformation of the landscape...

Read online

• 51

• Published: 2009

Shifting Sands: The Unravelling of the Old Order in the Middle East

Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh

At a time when the Middle East dominates media headlines more than ever - and for reasons that become ever more heartbreaking - Shifting Sands brings together fifteen impassioned a... show more ▼nd informed voices to talk about a region with unlimited potential, and yet which can feel, as one writer puts it, 'as though the world around me is on fire'?Collecting together the thoughts and insights of writers who live or have deep roots in there, Shifting Sands takes a look at aspects of the Middle East from the catastrophic long-term effects of the carving up of the region by the colonial powers after World War One to the hopes and struggles of the Arab spring in relation to Egypt, Iran and Syria. And it asks questions such as: what is it like to be a writer in the Middle East? What does the future hold? And where do we go from here? For all those who are wearied by the debates surrounding the Middle East - often at best ill-informed and at worst, defeatist propaganda - this intelligent, reasoned perspective on life in the Middle East is a breath of fresh air.**

Read online

• 21

• Published: 2015