If there was one figure central to postcolonial studies and the intellectual force behind the Palestinian meeting with Western academia, it was undoubtedly the late Edward W Said. Although he was an American citizen –his father having fled to...
Afaf Rahman is the principal of the Nurrideen School in Tempest, Illinois, who must lead this all-girls’ faith school through the hostility of its surrounding community, who are wary of immigrants in their neighbourhood, and the parents of the...
If Palestine is treated as an exception, the settler-colonial narrative is legitimised. Mark Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick’s book, Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics is an accessible, in depth analysis that takes US...
Growing up, taking a zeit and za’atar sandwich to school for lunch was not cool, nor was my humous and falafel sandwich. The delicious food my grandmothers, mother and aunts made wasn’t something I’d see on television, restaurant menus, or...
“Walking through the town square in El-Bireh, I’d noticed a little Palestinian boy selling Wrigleys — they call it taxi gum — five shekels for five pieces. The child was maybe ten years old and not well kept. His red shirt was too small...
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is often described as the most militant of the main Palestinian resistance factions yet, when compared with the likes of Hamas and Fatah, little is known about it, especially in Western media and academia. The...
Life in a Country Album is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and above all, inspirational. Nathalie Handal’s musings are divided into four regional parts: Album Français, Album Arabe Paris, Album Mediterraneen,...
On the very day that Jerusalem came under Israeli occupation in 1967 “exile became a central reality in my life,” recollects Kamal Boullata in the opening passages of the colossal volume that brings together the writings of celebrated...
The Nahr we meet some way into Susan Abdulhawa’s “Against the Loveless World” is a different one we imagine to the figure who sits in an Israeli jail cuffing her own hands to the wall and staring up at the black camera built into...
Rashid Khalidi’s telling of the story of the loss of his homeland and its gradual invasion is a deeply personal one, and is unlike other more detached accounts I have read. The author hails from a prominent family in the traditional Palestinian...
