Going Home: A Walk through Fifty Years of Occupation
Raja Shehadeh reflects on ageing, failure, the occupation, and the changing face of Ramallah
In Going Home, Orwell Prize winning author Raja Shehadeh travels Ramallah and records the changing face of the city. Walking along the streets he grew up in, he tells the stories of the people, the relationships, the houses, and the businesses that were and now are cornerstones of the city and his community.
This is, in many ways, an elegy. Green spaces – gardens and hills crowned with olive trees – have been replaced by tower blocks and concrete lots; the occupation and the settlements have further entrenched themselves in every aspect of movement-from the roads that can and cannot be used to the bureaucratic barriers that prevent people leaving the West Bank. The culture of the city has also shifted with Islam taking a more prominent role in people’s everyday and political lives and the geography of the city. As he grapples with ageing and the failures of the resistance, Shehadeh notes the ways that the past still invades the presence from the ruins of the compound that was Yasser Arafat’s home to the power of emigrated families to reshape neighbourhoods by selling their long-abandoned homes.
This is perhaps Raja Shehadeh’s most painfully visceral book.
RM66.50
Out of stock
Description
Raja Shehadeh reflects on ageing, failure, the occupation, and the changing face of Ramallah
In Going Home, Orwell Prize winning author Raja Shehadeh travels Ramallah and records the changing face of the city. Walking along the streets he grew up in, he tells the stories of the people, the relationships, the houses, and the businesses that were and now are cornerstones of the city and his community.
This is, in many ways, an elegy. Green spaces – gardens and hills crowned with olive trees – have been replaced by tower blocks and concrete lots; the occupation and the settlements have further entrenched themselves in every aspect of movement-from the roads that can and cannot be used to the bureaucratic barriers that prevent people leaving the West Bank. The culture of the city has also shifted with Islam taking a more prominent role in people’s everyday and political lives and the geography of the city. As he grapples with ageing and the failures of the resistance, Shehadeh notes the ways that the past still invades the presence from the ruins of the compound that was Yasser Arafat’s home to the power of emigrated families to reshape neighbourhoods by selling their long-abandoned homes.
This is perhaps Raja Shehadeh’s most painfully visceral book.
Publisher: Profile Books
Paperback
2019
ISBN:9781788163071
Related products
-
A Spool Of Blue Thread
‘It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon…’ This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in...RM79.90 -
Globalisation and the Development of Higher Education: The Case of a Malaysian Public University
This monograph examines the responses of a Malaysian public university, namely Universiti Sains Malaysia, to the impact of globalisation vis-à-vis...RM20.00 -
Mak Nyah
Ini bukan buku mengenai kecantikan dan kehidupan penuh glamorSetiap Mak Nyah akan tidur dan berdoa supaya esok pagi Tuhan akan bergerak secara...RM24.90 -
The Postcard Age: Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection
In the decades around 1900, postcards were Twitter, email, Flickr and Facebook, all wrapped into one A postcard craze swept the world, and billions...RM125.00