From Publishers Weekly
Karmi, a doctor and founding member of the British political group Palestine Action, relates her quest for cultural identity after her "fragile... and misfit Arab family" leaves Jerusalem for England during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Ironically, they resettle in a Jewish neighborhood in London; Karmi, aged nine, quickly begins to assimilate-becoming an avid reader of English literature and befriending Jewish neighbors-despite her mother's insistence on traditional Palestinian culinary customs, dating mores and family codes. Over the next two decades, events in the Middle East make their non-Arab neighbors increasingly hostile and her Jewish friends' pro-Israel fervor grows; after the Palestinian terrorist hijackings of the 1970s, some acquaintances refuse to speak to her. Karmi becomes an impassioned pro-Palestinian activist, and in 1977 she begins practicing medicine in a Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon-and finds that her Western upbringing and habits make her even less welcome there than she was in England. Karmi writes engagingly, weaving Palestinian political and social history through her personal recollections and giving the age-old emigr‚ dilemmas a timely twist. Though her account is inevitably one-sided regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the book's straightforward tone may appeal to politically minded readers looking for insight into the Palestinian exile experience. 20 b&w photos, 3 maps.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Keenly observed, fierce, honest and yet light of touch, Ms Karmi's memoir of dislocation illlustrates just how inseparable, for many people, the personal and the political still can be.” (
Economist )
“Ghada Karmi's compelling and beautifully written narrative is more than a personal memoir. It enables the reader to understand and to empathise with the psychological dislocation of exile that continues to fuel the Palestinian cause...” (Karen Armstrong -
Independent )
“Karmi's great achievement is to humanise the Palestinian predicament. Violent uprooting and exile have permanent psychological effects, which, as the Jewish people discovered, are not necessarily assuaged by the passage of time. We need counter-narratives like this, because we have recently learnt that it is not only parochial but also dangerous to ignore the pain and rights of others.” (
Independent )
“This is an important memoir, beautifully written by an intelligent, sensitive woman that fills a void in studies of Zionism. It should help those of us who do not understand why growing numbers of Muslims and not a few Christians have lost faith with Western pretensions of fairness.” (
Financial Times )
