Suad Amiry

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry________________The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, ‘the power of culture over the culture of power’.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee________________'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

I 1947 er Jaffa Palæstinas vigtigste havneby, hvilket især skyldes eksport af appelsiner. Subhi er trods sin unge alder, snart 16 som han ynder at sige, en dygtig mekaniker, hvilket han beviser ved at reparere vandingsanlægget i en engelskejet appelsinplantage. Han er forelsket i Shams, men kærligheden har trange kår, ikke mindst da englænderne i 1948 opgiver mandatet over Palæstina og trækker sig ud af landet. Jøder fra lande i Europa strømmer til Palæstina, som udråbes til staten Israel. Palæstinensiske familier bliver splittet og fordrives til de omliggende lande. Det gælder også Subhis og Shams’ familier. Romanen er baseret på forfatterens samtaler i 2018 med 87-årige Subhi og 84-årige Shams.

Set in Jaffa in between 1947 and 1951, this "fable-like historical novel of young love ... darkly humorous and touching" (Oprah Daily) is based on a true story during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. Based on the true story of two Jaffa teenagers, Mother of Strangers follows the daily lives of Subhi, a fifteen-year-old mechanic, and Shams, the thirteen-year-old student he hopes to marry one day. In this prosperous and cosmopolitan port city, with its bustling markets, cinemas, and caf s on the hills overlooking the Mediter­ranean Sea, we meet many other unforgettable charac­ters as well, including Khawaja Michael, the elegant and successful owner of orange groves above the harbor; Mr. Hassan, the tailor who makes Subhi's treasured English suit, which he hopes will change his life; and the very mischievous and outrageous Uncle Habeeb, who insists on introducing Subhi to the local bordello. With a thriving orange export business, Jaffa had always been a city welcoming to outsiders--the "Mother of Strangers"--where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived peacefully together. Once the bombardment of the city begins in April 1948, Suad Amiry gives us the grim but fascinating details of the shock, panic, and destruc­tion that ensues. Jaffa becomes unrecognizable, with neighborhoods flattened, families removed from their homes and separated, and those who remain in constant danger of arrest and incarceration. Most of the popula­tion flees eastward to Jordan or by sea to Lebanon in the north or to Egypt and Gaza in the south. Subhi and Shams will never see each other again. Suad Amiry has written a vivid and devastating ac­count of a seminal moment in the history of the Middle East--the beginning of the end of Palestine and a por­trait of a city irrevocably changed.

Set in Jaffa in between 1947 and 1951, this fable-like novel--based on a true story--is a heartbreaking tale of young love during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story, follows the lives of a gifted 15-year-old mechanic, Subhi, and 13-year-old Shams, a peasant girl he hopes to marry one day. At first we see the prosperous life of this cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean--with its old cinemas, lively cafes and brothels, open air markets, a bustling port and Jaffa's world famous orange groves--through the lives of the families of Subhi and Shams, but particularly through Subhi. As the story evolves, the indiscriminate bombing of Jaffa and the displacements of Palestinian families begin, and we get a fascinating though dark close-up of how those who remained survived. This novel is a cinematic, though devastating, account of one of the most dramatic and least known chapters of Palestinian history. It is a portrait of a city and a people irrevocably changed.

Suad Amiry traces the lives of individual members of Palestinian families and, through them, the histories of both Palestine and the émigré Palestinian community in other countries of the Middle East. Amiry mixes nostalgia with anger while mocking Israeli doublespeak that seeks to wipe out any trace of a Palestinian past in West Jerusalem. She juxtaposes serial bombardments and personal tragedies; evokes the sights and smells of Palestinian architecture and food; and weaves for us the tapestry that is the Palestinian reality, caught between official histories and private memories. Through poetry and prose, monologue and dialogue, we glimpse the lost Palestinian landscape, obscured by the silent battle between remembering and forgetting.

A collection of journal entries, e-mail correspondence, vignettes, and anecdotes offers an irreverent portrait of the miseries of daily life in the West Bank town of Ramallah, dealing with curfews, roadblocks, violence, and a mother-in-law trapped during a forty-two-day curfew. Reprint.

A blackly funny account of everyday life in Ramallah and refreshingly different from most writing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law describes Suad Amiry's life on the West Bank from the early 1980s to the first decade of the new millennium. Vividly evoking her neighbourhood and her moving family history, Amiry creates a fascinating account of her attempts to live a normal life in an insane situation: from the impossibility of acquiring gas masks during the first Gulf War to her dog acquiring a Jerusalem passport when thousands of Palestinians couldn't. During the Israeli invasion of Ramallah in March 2002, Amiry's feisty ninety-two-year-old mother-in-law came to live with them, and Amiry's diary of this time is at the heart of this wonderful book about the absurdity (and agony) of life in the Occupied Territories.