Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine - Hardcover

Shehadeh, Raja

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586420321 ISBN 13: 9781586420321

Publisher: Steerforth Pr, 2002

Synopsis

This "is not a political book," Anthony Lewis writes in his foreword. "Yet in a hundred different ways it is political.... Shehadeh shatters the stereotype many Americans have of Palestinians. Hath not a Palestinian senses, affections, passions?" This revealing memoir of a father-son relationship, the first of its kind by a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, is set against the backdrop of Middle East hostilities and more than thirty years of life under military occupation.
Three years after his family was driven from the coastal city of Jaffa in 1948, Raja Shehadeh was born in the provincial town of Ramallah, in the rural hills of the West Bank. His early childhood was marked by his family's sense of loss and impermanence, vividly evoked by the glittering lights "on the other side of the hill."
Growing up "in the shadow of home," he was introduced early to political conflict. He witnessed the numerous arrests of his father, Aziz Shehadeh, who, in 1967 was the first Palestinian to advocate a peaceful, two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He predicted that if peace were not achieved, what remained of the Palestinian homeland would be taken away, bit by bit, through Israeli settlement. Ostracized by his fellow Arabs and disillusioned by, the failure of either side to recognize his prophetic vision, Aziz retreated from politics. He was murdered in 1985.
Strangers in the House offers a moving description of the daily lives of those who have chosen to remain on their land. It is also the family drama of a difficult relationship between an idealistic son and his politically active father complicated by the arbitrary humiliation of the "occupier's law."

About this title

Review

"An invaluable resource--a moving and heartfelt document that captures the rage and despair of lives stunted by occupation"

"Unusually honest, beautifully written. . . . Few Palestinians have opened their minds and hearts with such frankness."

"A remarkable human document that explains better than a hundred political treatises why there is still no peace in the Middle East."

"Unusually honest, beautifully written....Few Palestinians have opened their hearts and minds with such frankness." The New York Times Book Review

"A remarkable human document that explains better than a hundred political treatises why there is still no peace in the Middle East." Amos Elon

"

-Unusually honest, beautifully written....Few Palestinians have opened their hearts and minds with such frankness.- --The New York Times Book Review

-A remarkable human document that explains better than a hundred political treatises why there is still no peace in the Middle East.- --Amos Elon

Book Description

An extraordinary and moving memoir by the award-winning author of Palestinian Walks - updated with a new foreword.

Edition details

• Publisher: Steerforth Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1586420321
• ISBN 13: 9781586420321
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 238