In an interview on Perspectives on Israel and Palestine

My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness.

Yes. She and her husband also translated this Palestinian poet called Taha Muhammad Ali. He was relatively unknown, and they became so enchanted with him that she decided to write his biography as well, which is this book. It’s a story of the Palestinian people told through a man who actually remained within Israel after the war of independence. And that’s interesting because most of what you hear about the Palestinians is from the Palestinians who left. The Palestinians who remained inside were a shameful subject to other Palestinians for quite a while. They were seen as the collaborators, the quislings. They got Israeli passports, they became part of the Zionist identity, and to this day they are a little distrusted both by other Palestinians and a lot of the rest of the Arabs.

So they really get it coming and going?

Absolutely. So his story is interesting partly because of that, and partly because the book is also, tangentially, about Palestinian poetry. And even for somebody who knows nothing about poetry in general, and certainly nothing about Arab poetry, it’s interesting because it shows how these supposedly fallen, corrupted, marginalised Israeli-Palestinians were in fact the main fount of Palestinian poetry in the 20th century.

Because of their homesickness?

The book offers a couple of reasons. One is that under the British mandate, and then under the Israelis, Arab literacy in Palestine increased dramatically. The British were very dogmatic about having everybody in school, and the Israelis were keen on that too. However, the Palestinians living in Israel were very limited in terms of their political expression. There was martial law in Arab areas of Israel until 1966. And so one of the few ways in which expression was possible was through literature. Then in 1967, after Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza strip, the rest of the Arab world finally got back in touch with the Palestinians inside Israel and discovered this incredibly powerful and vibrant literary scene. So after 1967 the nationalist Palestinian poets inside Israel, who had never been heard of before, were lionised…

Incredible. And was Taha Muhammad Ali one of them?

He knows them all. He’s present on the literary scene, but he doesn’t write. He’s a shopkeeper. He owns a souvenir shop in Nazareth. And it’s only after quite a while knowing all these other literary figures and being involved in one way or another that he begins to write poetry. He writes his first poem when he’s 40. He publishes his first collection of poems when he’s in his 50s. But when this couple in Jerusalem discovered him and started translating him he started to become a sensation because his poetry was different from the rest. It wasn’t overtly political. It was political in a much more subtle way, and sometimes not at all: social or very personal. But there was also something about him personally, charming, rather bumbling – you know, a nice old granddad.

So very unthreatening. But what is his poetry resonating with in the experience of other Palestinian-Israelis?

It’s not in your face. It’s very subtle and gentle as I said. And yet it does penetrate into the very deep issues in this roundabout way. So it’s as if he’s saying, ‘Yes I’m a Palestinian, yes I’ve suffered, but I’m not going to make a big song and dance about it. Here are just a couple of things you should know…’ It’s that sort of poetry. He does it with a great deal of humour.

So it’s not a call to arms. It’s a marvellous title – My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness – what does it mean?

That’s the title of one of his poems, which is directed at attackers who are not identified. The poem’s saying, ‘You think you can do this, that or the other to take away my happiness, but you’re wrong, because my happiness is not what you imagine happiness to be.’