Strangers in the House
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Profile Books Ltd
Published:16th Jul '09
Should be back in stock very soon
An extraordinary and moving memoir by the award-winning author of Palestinian Walks - updated with a new foreword.
Raja Shehadeh was born into a successful Palestinian family. When the state of Israel was formed in 1948 the family were driven out to the provincial town of Ramallah. In 1985 his father was stabbed to death. This book recounts his troubled and complex relationship with his father and his experience of exile - of being a stranger in his own land.Raja Shehadeh was born into a successful Palestinian family with a beautiful house overlooking the Mediterranean. When the state of Israel was formed in 1948 the family were driven out to the provincial town of Ramallah. There Shehadeh grew up in the shadow of his father, a leading civil rights lawyer. He vowed not to become involved in politics or law but inevitably did so and became an important activist himself. In 1985 his father was stabbed to death. The Israeli police failed to investigate the murder properly and Shehadeh, by then a lawyer, set about solving the crime that destroyed his family. In Strangers in the House, Shehadeh recounts his troubled and complex relationship with his father and his experience of exile - of being a stranger in his own land. It is a remarkable memoir that combines the personal and political to devastating effect.
A sad, dignified book. Shehadeh writes with great clarity and simplicity, but no bitterness, more in sorrow than in anger about the unhappy history of his family and country. * Independent *
A remarkable human document that explains better than a hundred political treatises why there is still no peace in the Middle East -- Amos Elon
A book with a huge sensory impact * Financial Times *
Its intimate portrayal of one family's history offers important insights into the wider Palestinian story -- Stephen Howe * New Statesman *
Distinctive and truly impressive * Economist *
ISBN: 9781846682506
Dimensions: 196mm x 128mm x 22mm
Weight: 191g
240 pages
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