A review by margaret45678
Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation by Raja Shehadeh

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

This is the second Shehadeh book I've read and it reaffirms my feeling that he's a great author for educated/liberal/humanistic types who are like just starting to unlearn the dominant view of the (so-called) Israel-Palestine conflict. Some of it is a bit "old man yells at cloud" (like when he says children are spending too much time on their computers and becoming "obese"), but I think that's all the more reason why a certain segment of Western society will find him relatable. For people used to thinking of Palestinians as either bloodthirsty terrorists or helpless victims, reading a normal guy's thoughts on aging, nature, restaurants, his parents, cutting out gluten from his diet, etc. may break them out of their simplistic perspectives.

I also really like how he incorporates his personal history and the history of Ramallah and Palestine in general into his reflections over the course of a single day. I wouldn't say he's an especially brilliant stylist, and there were a few instances where I found his phrasing a bit convoluted, but generally his writing is pleasantly unpretentious.