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fschueler's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
sareidle's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Grief, War, Death of parent, and Genocide
jalsop's review
4.0
Raja Shedahdeh has created a beautiful and important memoir of his coming of age in Palestine. It is a personal memoir reflecting heavily on the primary conflict between his father and himself. However, its suffused with the tumultuous politics of the Middle East and and the Palestinian issue which forms much of the makeup of the novel. This therefore contributes to the multiple meanings of the title, which echoes the author's feelings about his family as well as the situation in Palestine in general.
I have read quite a lot of books on Palestine and this truly is one of my favourites - having a quite a different impact on me as shows the personal and both the physical sufferings Raja endures.
Overall, Raja creates a beautiful memoir demonstrating life in exile offering a personal, humane opinion on Palestinian life. For anyone with interest in the Palestinian issue this is a must read.
I have read quite a lot of books on Palestine and this truly is one of my favourites - having a quite a different impact on me as shows the personal and both the physical sufferings Raja endures.
Overall, Raja creates a beautiful memoir demonstrating life in exile offering a personal, humane opinion on Palestinian life. For anyone with interest in the Palestinian issue this is a must read.
edenseve63's review against another edition
3.0
Well worth reading. A thoughtful, sensitive, intelligent man's search for his identity under the shadow of a compelling, charismatic, beloved father. The setting is the occupied territories under the control of the Israeli military authorities. The father is Palestinian Attorney from Jaffa, wHo found himself and his family in their summer home Ramallah when the fighting began in 1948 and were never allowed to return to their home. The son is a human rights attorney who is torn between his father's wish that he focus strictly on the legal business he built working in both Israel and the Palestine jurisdictions. A business he has built since his stand to forge 2 separate states in 1967 was unheeded by all parties involved. The age old struggle to become your own man is wonderfully depicted in Raj Shehadeh's beautifully written memoir.
buttermellow's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting book on life for a Palestinian growing up in the West Bank, gets to drone on after awhile, but a good story on the author's life and what he went through. Gets more interesting towards the end when it starts going into human rights issues and the author's struggling fighting for them.
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