I Saw Ramallah

Description

Is there any other country in the world that so perplexes you with its names? Last time I was clear and things were clear. Now I am ambiguous and vague. Everything is ambiguous and vague.

A fierce and moving memoir on returning to Palestine, the meaning of exile and homeland, and the habitual place and status of a person, from the late Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti.

Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, Barghouti spent thirty years in exile: shuttling between the world’s cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest.

As he returns to Ramallah for the first time since the Israeli occupation, crossing a wooden bridge over the Jordan River, Barghouti is unable to recognise the city of his youth. He discovers how the joy of return and reunion is accompanied by a feeling of insurmountable loss.

A tour de force of memory, reflection and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is deeply humane and is essential to any balanced understanding of today’s Middle East.

‘Extraordinary and humbling.’ Catherine Taylor, Irish Times

‘A brilliant, beautiful book.’ Kamila Shamsie

‘Intensely lyrical. Much of this beautifully written and evocative book is a lamentation on the conditions of exile.’ Guardian

‘Barghouti manages to be temperate, fair-minded, resilient and uniquely sad. This is an impressive addition to the literature of exile.’ Tom Paulin, Independent

‘Moving and thoughtful … compelling Barghouti s description of his return to Ramallah is impassioned.’ Metro

‘As powerful, moving and vital as it was twenty years ago.’ Andrew McMillan

‘Controlled, reflective, factual, unemotional, eloquent … superbly and sensitively translated.’ Times Literary Supplement

‘A beautiful, vital book.’ Ella Risbridger