I Was Born There, I Was Born Here

(Paperback)

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Description

The sequel to the classic memoir I Saw Ramallah, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here takes up the story in 1998 when Barghouti returned to the Occupied Territories to introduce his Cairo-born son, Tamim, to his Palestinian family. Ranging freely back and forth in time between the 1990s and the present day, Barghouti weaves into his account of exile poignant evocations of Palestinian history and daily life - the pleasure of coffee arriving at just the right moment, the challenge of a car journey through the Occupied Territories, the meaning of home and the importance of being able to say, standing in a small village in Palestine, 'I was born here', rather than saying from exile, 'I was born there'. Full of life and humour in the face of death, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here is destined, like its predecessor, to become a classic.

Reviews

A particularly sophisticated insight into the plight of Palestinians and their perspective on the conflict ... Beautiful -- Jake Wallis Simons * Independent on Sunday *
A salutary lesson * Economist *
An honest confrontation with Israeli violence and impunity, an unflinching description of the Palestinian Authority's compromising failures, and a plea for joy. Barghouti renders the world with rare exactitude -- Guy Mannes-Abbot * Independent *
An urgent meditation on the existential condition of exile, both within one's homeland and without * Metro *
Praise for I Saw Ramallah
An important literary event ... One of the finest existential accounts of Palestinian displacement that we now have' * Edward Said *
The passionate pain of exile, recounted at the end of a day by a true poet' * John Berger *
Outside any political faction, Barghouti manages to be temperate, fair-minded, resilient and uniquely sad' * Tom Paulin, Independent *

Author Bio

Mourid Barghouti was born in 1944 near Ramallah. He has published thirteen books of poetry in Arabic including a Collected Works (1997) and was awarded the Palestine Award for Poetry in 2000. Mourid Barghouti lives in Cairo with his wife, the novelist Radwa Ashour.