Transformations in Palestinian Literature
Leo Tolstoy prefaced his
Anna Karenina with the following statement: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Palestinians today are unlucky enough to be counted among the world s leading families of multifarious misery, the Zionist project having transformed them, time and again, into refugees in far-flung places-and also into refugees on the land of Palestine in which they were born.
Some of them have had to live through the experience of exile and alienation, of refugee camps and endless waiting. Others have been obliged to live the lives of impossible citizenship, since the Arab who lives on the Land of Israel can never be the equal of an Israeli citizen. And, ever since the Oslo Agreement, and despite the media s ability to hold forth at length on the virtues of the Peace Process, the process itself has offered Palestinians only unprecedented varieties of misery. This evidently has been fu
The Book of Ramallah
About this Event
Join Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Comma Press for a journey to Ramallah, as we reflect on the latest title in Comma’s series on ‘Reading the City’.
Edited by Beirut-born, Palestinian novelist Maya Abu Al-Hayat, who lives in Jerusalem and works in Ramallah, this anthology explores the city in all its countless contradictions. The Book of Ramallah features stories from ten established and emerging Palestinian writers, including Anas Abu Rahma, Liana Badr, Khaled Hourani and Ahmad Jaber.
Ramallah is the cultural, commercial and governmental hub of the West Bank and the stories explore its defiance in resistance against the occupying forces, alongside its frustration and division by its secrets and conservatism. Characters fall in love, have affairs, poke fun at the heavy military presence, but also see their aspirations cut short, their lives eaten into, their morale beaten down by the daily humiliations of the conflict. Through humou