Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This is a wonderful book – it’s a history book, it’s a work of literature, it’s a memoir... Ramzy Baroud is a political commentator and historian. He grew up in the Gaza refugee camp and is very familiar with the psychology of the people in the camps – to this day they’re holding out hope and still dreaming of going home. He captures this delightfully and his descriptions of place and people are just magnificent.
Tell me about your first choice, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter.
This is a wonderful book – it’s a history book, it’s a work of literature, it’s a memoir... Ramzy Baroud is a political commentator and historian, editor of the Palestine Chronicle and editor of a book called Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion about the events of 2002. He grew up in the Gaza refugee camp and is very familiar with the psychology of the people in the camps – to this day they’re holding out hope and still dreaming of going home. He captures this delightfully and his descriptions of place and people are just magnificent. These sorts of works are so important because, you know, when people write about Palestine it tends to be in dry, sterile prose. There is nothing dry about this book – even though it’s non-fiction it is full of emotion and wonderful characters.
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Susan Abulhawa was born to refugees of the Six-Day War of 1967 when her family’s land was seized. She is the author of the acclaimed novel Mornings in Jenin, the profits of which partly go to the children’s charity she founded, Playgrounds for Palestine.
