Suad Amiry

Set in Jaffa in 1947-51, this fable-like novel is a heartbreaking tale of young love during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people.

At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story, follows the lives of a gifted 15-year-old mechanic, Subhi, and 13-year-old Shams, a peasant girl he hopes to marry one day. At first we see the prosperous life of this cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean--with its old cinemas, lively cafes and brothels, open air markets, a bustling port and Jaffa's world famous orange groves--through the lives of the families of Subhi and Shams, but particularly through Subhi. As the story evolves, the indiscriminate bombing of Jaffa and the displacements of Palestinian families begin, and we get a fascinating though dark close-up of how those who remained survived. This novel is a cinematic, though devastating, account of one of the most dramatic and least known chapters of Palestinian history.

It is a portrait of a city and a people irrevocably changed.

A Novel

Mother of Strangers

Sharon e mia suocera-Se questa è vita

A collection of journal entries, e-mail correspondence, vignettes, and anecdotes offers an irreverent portrait of the miseries of daily life in the West Bank town of Ramallah, dealing with curfews, roadblocks, violence, and a mother-in-law trapped during a forty-two-day curfew. Reprint.

Ramallah Diaries

Sharon and My Mother-in-Law

China Miéville

Susan Abulhawa

Henning Mankell

Chinua Achebe

Geoff Dyer

Michael Ondaatje

Linda Spalding

Adam Foulds

Pankaj Mishra

Claire Messud

Kamila Shamsie

Teju Cole

Deborah Moggach

Michael Palin

J.M. Coetzee

Raja Shehadeh

Rachel Holmes

Sabrina Mahfouz

William Sutcliffe

Mohammed Hanif

Molly Crabapple

Alice Walker

Mahmoud Darwish

Ed Pavlic

Gillian Slovo

Ru Freeman

Najwan Darwish

Jeremy Harding

Yasmin El-Rifae

Suheir Hammad

Mercedes Kemp

John Horner

Bridget Keenan

Jehan Bseiso

Atef Abu Saif

Omar El-Khairy

Selma Dabbagh

Remi Kanazi

Muiz,

Ghada Karmi

Maath Musleh

Nancy Kricorian

Nathalie Handal

Victoria Brittain

Jamal Mahjoub

Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world. The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power." Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations. Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.

Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature

This Is Not A Border

Women at the Edge

Menopausal Palestine

The story of a Palestinian woman's harrowing trek as she shadows illegal workers crossing into the town of Petah Tikva in Israel, this book encapsulates eighteen hours that contain countless moments of mortal danger.

An 18-Hour Journey with Murad

Nothing To Lose But Your Life

No Sex in in the City

شارون وحماتي

غولدا نامت هنا

Sharon e mia suocera. Diari di guerra da Ramallah, Palestina

Suad Amiry conduce il lettore nei cortili e nelle stanze della famiglia Baroudi, con i fastosi pranzi del venerdì, le rivalità tra i figli maschi pigri e viziati, il vincolo indissolubile tra le figlie femmine. Una saga appassionante e poetica sospesa tra realtà e finzione, una rievocazione innamorata e nostalgica di un mondo raffinatissimo spazzato via dal fanatismo e dalla crudeltà, ma soprattutto una riflessione sul senso della maternità e sul silenzio come estremo gesto d’amore. Una storia e un affresco che dall’Impero ottomano arrivano al presente ulcerato del Medio Oriente. I personaggi sono memorabili, la scrittura leggera, le emozioni grandi.

Damasco

A shocking and beautiful portrait of Palestinian life under Israeli rule by the author of Sharon and My Mother-in-Law.

Golda Slept Here

Vera Tamari

A well-illustrated guide to the material culture of the fellahin, the villagers who inhabited the central highlands of Palestine at the turn of the 20th century.

The Palestinian Village Home

Set in Jaffa in 1947-51, this fable-like novel is a heartbreaking tale of young love during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story, follows the lives of a gifted 15-year-old mechanic, Subhi, and 13-year-old Shams, a peasant girl he hopes to marry one day. At first we see the prosperous life of this cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean—with its old cinemas, lively cafes and brothels, open air markets, a bustling port and Jaffa’s world famous orange groves—through the lives of the families of Subhi and Shams, but particularly through Subhi. As the story evolves, the indiscriminate bombing of Jaffa and the displacements of Palestinian families begin, and we get a fascinating though dark close-up of how those who remained survived. This novel is a cinematic, though devastating, account of one of the most dramatic and least known chapters of Palestinian history. It is a portrait of a city and a people irrevocably changed.

Politics enters the lives of every family in Palestine. In this literary-historical tour de force, Suad Amiry traces the lives of individual members of Palestinian families and, through them, the histories of both Palestine and the émigré Palestinian community in other countries of the Middle East. Amiry mixes nostalgia with anger while mocking Israeli doublespeak that seeks to wipe out any trace of a Palestinian past in West Jerusalem. She juxtaposes serial bombardments and personal tragedies; evokes the sights and smells of Palestinian architecture and food; and weaves for us the tapestry that is the Palestinian reality, caught between official histories and private memories. Through poetry and prose, monologue and dialogue, we glimpse the lost Palestinian landscape, obscured by the silent battle between remembering and forgetting.

“Mi han detto che la tua casa è dove sei tu. Ci ho provato ma non sempre ci riesco.”Questa storia ha inizio nel 1948, quando gli inglesi, partendo da Israele, lasciarono due popoli in lotta: l’uno con tutto, l’altro con niente.

Golda ha dormito qui

Una donna palestinese, colta, intelligente e spiritosa, tiene un ‟diario di guerra”. Gli israeliani sparano ma, nella forzata reclusione fra le pareti domestiche, ‟spara” anche la madre del marito, una suocera proverbiale. In pagine scoppiettanti di humour e di lucidità politica e sentimentale, i colpi bassi di Sharon e del suo governo finiscono per fare tutt'uno con le idiosincrasie della suocera petulante, con la quale l'autrice si trova a trascorrere in un involontario tête à tête il tempo dell'assedio. Ma, come la guerra, neanche l'avventura cominciata con Sharon e mia suocera finisce ed ecco che Suad Amiry con Se questa è vita ci regala una nuova puntata del suo irresistibile diario di guerra e di vita quotidiana dai Territori occupati. Con l'indiavolato humour che la contraddistingue e sfoderando un'ormai piena e affilata sapienza narrativa, ci conduce da una stazione all'altra del calvario palestinese, facendoci piangere, ridere, sdegnare, riflettere, connettere, ricordare. Portandoci, con tono lieve e tragicomico, a scoprire i piccoli e grandi contrattempi del vivere nel devastato scenario mediorientale. Al centro del suo affresco narrativo, come sempre, l'ingombrante e svagata suocera Umm Salim, che resiste alla brutalità dell'occupazione militare con abitudini da tempi di pace, orari, buone maniere. Attorno a lei un balletto indiavolato di vicini di casa, parenti, amici, funzionari israeliani, spie e collaboratori, cani, muri in costruzione, paesaggi splendidi e violati, checkpoint e soldati.

Se questa è vita

Sharon e mia suocera

A NOSTALGIC VOYAGE THAT REVEALS THE SYRIAN CAPITAL'S MAJESTIC PAST Writer and architect, Suad Amiry, was born in an old neighborhood of Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. In My Damascus she takes her reader by the hand through not only the narrow alleys and lively souqs adjacent to the grand Umayyad Mosque, but also into the intimate spaces of her rich merchant grandfather's Baroudi Mansion. Through a web of interwoven personal stories and an intricate mix of simple, complicated or sometimes devious characters, Amiry travels across space and time, spanning three generations of family history. The Baroudi women animate the story and sparkle like no others: Teta, Amiry's grandmother, rendered mute after her husband's great betrayal; her cousin, Norma, torn between love for her adoptive mother and longing for a real mother she will never know; Fatima and Ghalia, Karimeh and Laila, maids and aunts, in a kaleidoscope of vignettes. Through them Amiry traces the social and political history of Greater Syria from the Ottoman Empire era until its present-day devastation, juxtaposing them with the most intimate, loving, often contentious, family relations and secrets. In the end, her Damascus becomes a metaphor for a dispersed family and a lost past, as well as an elegy for a city she can no longer claim as her own. Suad Amiry, a Palestinian writer and architect, has been living in Ramallah since 1981. Born in Damascus, Amiry grew up between Amman, Damascus, Beirut and Cairo. She studied architecture in Beirut (at the American University of Beirut), Michigan, and Edinburgh. Amiry is author of Menopausal Palestine: Women at the Edge, Nothing to Lose but Your Life, and the highly-acclaimed Sharon and My Mother-in-Law, which has been translated into 17 languages and was awarded the prestigious 2004 Viareggio Prize. She is the founder and Director of the Riwaq: Centre for Architectural Conservation. Amiry is the vice-president of the Board of Trustees of Birzeit University. She lives in Ramallah with her husband, the academic and political activist Salim Tamari.

My Damascus

Suad Amiry

Books

Your next favorite book is out there