A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

A deeply immersive portrait of daily life in Israel and the West Bank arranged around the story of a Palestinian child and a school trip that ends in tragedy following a traffic accident. Weaving together the ordinary and interwoven lives of Jewish and Palestinian inhabitants, Thrall, a Jerusalem-based author and journalist, illuminates the complex realities of one of the world’s most contested regions -- The Best Books to Understand the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict * Financial Times *
Nathan Thrall’s searing new book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, struck me as important even before the obscene massacres and mass kidnappings committed by Hamas this month lit the Middle East on fire. Today, with people still struggling to understand the contours of this deeply complicated conflict, the book seems essential -- Michelle Goldberg * New York Times *
Shows humanity on both sides… The author writes coolly, carefully, without rhetoric or invective. He does not claim neutrality — the daily humiliations of Israeli occupation thud like a drumbeat on every page — but he avoids arm-twisting reportage or cartoonish history. No one portrayed here lacks humanity or complexity… quietly heartbreaking… a galloping narrative of hope and dread -- Boyd Tonkin * Financial Times *
A compelling work of nonfiction, a book that is by turns deeply affecting and, in its concluding chapters, as tense as a thriller…. not only a meticulously detailed account of one event but perhaps the clearest picture yet of the reality of daily life in the occupied territories -- Jonathan Freedland * Guardian *
This quietly heartbreaking work of non-fiction reads like a novel. At its centre is a tragic road accident outside Jerusalem in the West Bank from which Thrall, a Jewish American journalist, carefully traces the labyrinthine lives of those involved and the tangled web of politics, history and culture that ensnare them all -- Carl Wilkinson * Financial Times Best Books of 2023, Literary Non-Fiction *
Chronicles the asymmetry in the occupied West Bank today that its main character cannot reverse. It is one of the most effective presentations of quotidian injustice I have read, precisely because the story Thrall narrates is not a matter of the gory violence that has become so prevalent in the region since -- Samuel Moyn * New Statesman Best Books of the Year 2023 *
A compelling and detailed account of a small tragedy in the West Bank that illuminates the larger tragedy of Palestinians living under occupation. Thrall tells the story of a bus accident that killed six children and a teacher — and how their lives were shaped and constrained by Israeli policy, leading indirectly to their deaths -- Gideon Rachman * Financial Times Best Books of the Year 2023, Politics *
Nathan Thrall's book made me walk a lot. I found myself pacing around between chapters, paragraphs and sometimes even sentences just in order to be able to absorb the brutality, the pathos, the steely tenderness, and the sheer spectacle of the cunning and complex ways in which a state can hammer down a people and yet earn the applause and adulation of the civilized world for its actions -- Arundhati Roy
The book combines heart-wrenching prose with rare political insight. It tells a deeply moving story about one tragic road accident, which illuminates the tragedy of the millions of Palestinians who live under Israeli Occupation -- Yuval Noah Harari
Thrall is one of the few writers who can combine vivid storytelling with in-depth analysis of the occupation... his expertise allows him to shuttle nimbly between the viewpoints of frantic families and Palestinian leaders as well as Israeli officials and nearby settlers -- Rozina Ali * New York Times *