IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
As a new parent, I’m now alert to a substratum of media that passed below the radar of my younger, less narcissistic, self. In the space of mild leftist parenting, this means acquiring board-book samizdat such as Click Clack Moo (cows striking for workplace benefits), and A Rule is to Break (inculcating anarchist principles in pre-literate children.) Of course, the post-colonial space of this genre (Babar notwithstanding) is pretty unpopulated, so I was excited to spot P is for Palestine by Golbarg Bashi at my local Book Culture.
on December 20, 2017
Literature
The Parachute Paradox, a new book from Palestinian author Steve Sabella, provides a unique insight into the individual pursuit of global citizenship through the author’s life story. Sabella begins in Jerusalem’s Old City, where he was born, and he quickly learns that only his unfettered imagination and bold spirit will enable him to see beyond his identity...
on December 21, 2016
Identical twins who swap identities to keep their double out of jail; an Israeli settler caught in his own razor wire, too proud to allow himself to be helped down by a Palestinian; a little blond girl who defiantly raises her fist at soldiers twice her size—Ben Ehrenreich brings a novelist's touch to anecdotes that are often stranger than fiction in his new book.
on July 6, 2016
Palestinian Profiles
A lawyer by training, British-Palestinian writer Selma Dabbagh’s short stories have been included in a number of anthologies, including those published by Granta and International PEN. She was also nominated for the International PEN David T.K. Wong Award and the Pushcart Prize. “The power of fiction lies in its ability to humanize the other,” says Dabbagh on her decision to become a writer.
on May 24, 2016
Suad Amiry is a Palestinian architect and writer, and the founder of RIWAQ: Center of Architectural Conservation in Ramallah, Palestine. Amiry found her talent for writing after spending 42 days under curfew with her mother-in-law in Ramallah in 2002. The result was her acclaimed memoir “Sharon and My Mother-in-Law,” which was released by Random House in 2006.
on June 30, 2015
Q&As
In Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land, journalist and author Sandy Tolan tells the story of Ramzi Aburedwan, a Palestinian who grew up in Al Amari refugee camp in the 1980s and ’90s. Today, Aburedwan is a renowned viola and bouzouk player, and the founder of Al Kamandjati (Arabic for “the violinist”), an organization that aims to make music accessible to Palestinian children.
on May 7, 2015
On April 14, 2015, Verso Books will release “Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation.” In this collection of essays and poems, American authors and Palestinian authors living in America offer their raw, unfiltered reactions to the relentless oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
on March 24, 2015
Literature
While developing his latest poetry collection, the aptly named Textu (text + haiku), Palestinian-American poet and physician Fady Joudah spent a lot of time on his smartphone. This ubiquitous device may seem like the enemy of good art, but Joudah explains his modern methodology in the book’s short introduction.
on December 19, 2014
Palestinian-American Profiles
“None of my characters are rooted to a particular place, and that makes all of them marginalized, outsiders, or outcasts,” says Randa Jarrar, an accomplished author, translator, and professor at California State University, Fresno. As a Palestinian American, Jarrar is intimately familiar with the struggles of identity and belonging, and brings that experience to her work. “That’s what makes for good writing,” she says. “When you write from the point of view of someone who is not inside the norm.”
on May 28, 2014