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I Saw Ramallah
by Mourid Barghouti (Foreword: Edward W. Said) (Translator: Ahdaf Soueif)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Anchor (2003-05-13)
ISBN: 1400032660
EAN: 9781400032662
Dewy Decimal #: 892.78603
Paperback: 208 pages
Release Date: 2003-05-13
SKU: 08040089
Condition: Very Good As issued
Comments: Trade Paperback. Very Good condition with no markings. No highlights, underlines or notes in text. No creases to spine and light small diagonal crease in front cover. Minor wear to cover. Tight binding and clean crisp text. Very Nice copy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Winner of the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Medal, this fierce and moving work is an unparalleled rendering of the human aspects of the Palestinian predicament.
Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, the poet Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years in exile—shuttling among the world’s cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest. As he returns home for the first time since the Israeli occupation, Barghouti crosses a wooden bridge over the Jordan River into Ramallah and is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories of the old Palestine as they come up against what he now encounters in this mere “idea of Palestine,” he discovers what it means to be deprived not only of a homeland but of “the habitual place and status of a person.” A tour de force of memory and reflection, lamentation and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is a deeply humane book, essential to any balanced understanding of today’s Middle East.
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Customer Reviews
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Very moving personal account of a complex conflict
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-10-19
Mourid Barghouti's vivid memoir was a pleasure to read. "I saw Ramallah" describes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of one of the millions of human beings and families directly affected by the conflict. We learn how the author was exiled because the 1967 war took place while he was studying abroad. We see how he was separated from his wife and kid by a second exile from Egypt due to his "Palestinianness". We get to cry with him when he hears of his brother's tragic death, also in exile. And we get a taste for his complicated feelings upon seeing his country for the first time in 25 years during the Oslo Peace process.
This book truly shows that nothing is simple about the Middle East Conflict. It spares no authority from criticism - not the Palestinian Authority, not the Arab countries, and not Israel. At the same time, the book shows that in fact the Middle East conflict is simple: we are all humans at the base of it! Enjoyable reading, and very thought-provoking.
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Amazing, realistic, and emotional all at once.
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-07-22
In his book I Saw Ramallah, Mourid Barghouti is able to give us a realistic view of what it is like for a refugee. Although he shows the emotion that a Palestinian goes through, he also explains what it is like to feel that you are losing touch with your homeland. Finally, Barghouti makes the struggle more human when he explains it as being a fight of pride. The moment that Barghouti was standing in the Jordanian side and looking at his land, tears welled up into my eyes because he makes his readers feel what it is like to be so close to what you MUST attain and yet so far away.
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Insightful historical & personal account of Israeli Occupation
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-08-07
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book by Mourid Barghouti captures the spirit of the Palestinian peoples in the poetic glances of one man's journey back to his homeland after exile and during occupation. It is every Palestinian's wish to live, work, play, breathe without the fear of death, torture, constant threats, and imprisonment of the occupation forces. Truly, every Palestinian needs to write their stories for the world to know... as the "Logic of Beings" indicates in this book. My heart goes out to the Palestinian people after reading such a depiction of unthinkable loss, constant uncertainty, and simple wishes of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
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displaced person
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-11-04
12 out of 13 customers found this reveiw helpful
Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti tells of a brief return to the West Bank where he lived as a boy and now may visit only by permission of the Israeli occupation authority. It is a bittersweet homecoming told with a poet's sensibility, emotions reflected in what seem like fragments of free association, as he remembers the years between 1948 and 1967 and notes the many changes that have taken place during his absence, from the growth of Israeli settlements to the impact of liberation politics on a new generation.
Identified as a dissident in the aftermath of 1967, he was expelled from Egypt where he had been a university student, was married and had become a new father. Barghouti has since lived as a displaced person in several different countries, a member of the Palestinian diaspora. He writes of his particular kind of homelessness with poignancy and sharp clarity. Interwoven are accounts of the deaths of friends and his brother Mounif, lost to the dark forces of political strife. Not surprisingly, there is anger, as well, in Barghouti's book. Anyone with an interest in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine would do well to hear him out.
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Eloquent personal history that tells the Palestinian story
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-09-24
9 out of 12 customers found this reveiw helpful
I love this book! I read it first in the original Arabic and was thrilled to discover that Ahdaf Soueif's masterful translation renders the spirit and the language of Barghouti's prose beautifully. This book has fast become my number one recommendation as an introductory book on the Palestinian experience. Barghouti captures the experiences of exile, occupation, and less than optimal "return" as no one has before. I know so many fellow Palestinians who have experienced exactly the range of emotion he describes crossing the bridge from Jordan to the occupied West Bank, or receiving that phone call at night in a foreign country, with relatives scattered across the globe. Barghouti's book humanizes Palestinian life in all its complexity, grief, humor, and presents to the reader in sincere and lucid language. This book is a must read for anyone hoping to understand Palestine and the Palestinians.
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