ID :
347172
Sun, 11/09/2014 - 16:36
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Bloomsbury Qatar Publishes 11th Book 'Golda Slept Here'

Doha, November 09 (QNA) - Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing house Monday releases here its 11th book titled 'Golda Slept Here' written by Palestinian author Suad Amiry. The 201-page paperback edition is a first-person narrative of the injustice and ordeals faced by Palestinians revolving around the author's friends and her family with roots in Jaffa and Jerusalem in their homeland. Damascus-born Amiry, assisted by Oxford-educated Palestinian editor Alex Barmaki, writes the autobiographical account with a novelist's approach. The story is racy, informative, and she weaves well the trials, fears, frustrations, hope and angst of a displaced generation. The book is a mini storehouse of information on Palestinian political, social history, places, events and its community leaders for readers unfamiliar with their stories and issues. The author immediately dives into bits of Palestinian history within the first ten pages. She writes about her father's time at Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS) and its first radio station, Huna Al Quds(Jerusalem Calling), where he worked in 1940s till it was taken over by Zionist forces in 1948. Through her narrative the reader gets to know that a section of Palestinian community thrive in business, the arts, sciences, education and culture - like a prominent member Andoni Baramki, Palestine's first architect. Amiry, also an architect living in Ramallah since she first returned to Palestine in 1981, wrote a major portion of the 201-page paperback book at Martin Luther King Public Library in Georgetown, Washington. She studied architecture at the American University of Beirut, the University of Michigan, and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Amiry mixes nostalgia with anger while mocking Israeli doublespeak. She juxtaposes serial bombardments and personal tragedies while evoking the grandeur of Palestinian architecture and aroma of delicious food. Regarding her pursuit of writing she says, "I was born a hakawati, (Arabic for story teller, derived from the Lebanese word haki) but it took me 50 years to realize that writing is about having a story to tell, then comes the drafting of an eloquent sentence." Her earlier book "Sharon and My Mother-in-Law" is translated into 19 languages, the last one in Arabic, which was a bestseller in France. She is Director and founder of the Riwaq Centre for Architectural Conservation set up in 1991. Its the first of its kind to work on the rehabilitation and protection of architectural heritage in Palestine. (QNA)

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