I Saw Ramallah

Is there any other country in the world that so perplexes you with its names? Last time I was clear and things were clear. Now I am ambiguous and vague. Everything is ambiguous and vague.

A fierce and moving memoir on returning to Palestine, the meaning of exile and homeland, and the habitual place and status of a person, from the late Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti.

Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, Barghouti spent thirty years in exile: shuttling between 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 to Ramallah for the first time since the Israeli occupation, crossing a wooden bridge over the Jordan River, Barghouti is unable to recognise the city of his youth. He discovers how the joy of return and reunion is accompanied by a feeling of insurmountable loss.

A tour de force of memory, reflection and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is deeply humane and is essential to any balanced understanding of today’s Middle East.