Book Review: I Saw Ramallah
A Memoir of a Palestinian Refugee
I Saw Ramallah is a lyrical, moving story about the return of the Palestinian novelist Mourid Barghouti to Palestine after 30 years of displacement. Between June 1946 and May 1948, Palestinians lost their homes, lands and means of livelihood because of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Barghouti is one of around 6 million Palestinian refugees who were denied the right to go back to their homes in Palestine.
Awarded the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 1997, I Saw Ramallah is full of little joys and many questions about home, the changing realities and the troubling history of Palestine.
Finally Home
In spring 1967, Barghouti left Deir Ghassanah, a village outside of Ramallah, to return to Cairo for his university exams. On June 5, while in the process of winning a university degree, he loses his home as Ramallah has fallen to the Israeli army. In Egypt, he marries and has a son, but is forced to leave the country and settle, without his family, in Budapest.
For 30 years, the Israeli authorities prevented Barghouti from returning to Palestine. In 1996, Barghouti is finally allowed to return to Ramallah. When, at the start of the book, he crosses the bridge from Jordan into Palestine, he keeps asking how his city and its people will receive him. Will he recognize the places and people of his youth? Have they changed? Has he changed?
His journey home is full of mixed emotions: joy at seeing those waiting for him and sadness for those who have died before seeing their home country, those who will never walk in Palestine again, those who will never smell its orange, olive and jasmine trees. Barghouti sees Palestine not only for himself, but for all 6 million Palestinian refugees as well. His joy at being back is mixed with a feeling of guilt that he, not them, is returning.
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