News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

• home
• browse books
• book details:

The Book of Ramallah: A City in Short Fiction

by Maya Abu Al-Hayat (Editor) - £9.99  Comma Press (2021)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9781912697427 | ISBN 10: 1912697424

Featuring Maya Abu Al-Hayat, Anas Abu Rahma, Liana Badr, Ahlam Bsharat, Ameer Hamad, Khaled Hourani, Ahmad Jaber, Ziad Khadash, Ibrahim Nasrallah & Mahmoud Shukair
 
A coffee seller waits all day for one of his customers to ask him how he is, until eventually he just tells the city itself...

A teenager is ordered off a bus at a checkpoint and told he must kiss a complete stranger if he wants the bus to be let through...

A woman pilgrimages to the Cave of the Prophets, to pray for rain for her tiny patch of land, knowing it will take more than water to save it...
 
Unlike most other Palestinian cities, Ramallah is a relatively new town, a de facto capital of the West Bank allowed to thrive after the Oslo Peace Accords, but just as quickly hemmed in and suffocated by the Occupation as the Accords have failed. Perched along the top of a mountainous ridge, it plays host to many contradictions: traditional Palestinian architecture jostling against aspirational developments and cultural initiatives, a thriving nightlife in one district, with much more conservative, religious attitudes in the next. Most striking however – as these stories show – is the quiet dignity, resilience and humour of its people; citizens who take their lives into their hands every time they travel from one place to the next, who continue to live through countless sieges, and yet still find the time, and resourcefulness, to create.
 
Translated by Basma Ghalayini, Alexander Hong, Thoraya El-Rayyes, Mohammed Ghalaieny, Raph Cormack, Adam Talib, Yasmine Seale, Andrew Leber, Emre Bennett & Raph Cohen.

(Price & availability last checked: March 2021)

Order by email

×

The Book of Ramallah: A City in Short Fiction - by Maya Abu Al-Hayat (Editor)

Please fill in the order form, & we will reply as soon as we can to confirm your order & tell you how long it will take. Choose between collection from our bookshop or mail-order, for which we charge postage at cost, at current Royal Mail rates

Select type of order: Collect & pay in the shop - I live in or can visit Liverpool Mail-order - send me a card payment link Mail-order - I will pay another way & give details in the notes section

Your name:

Please fill out this field.

Your email address

Please check carefully that you have entered your email correctly

Please fill out this field.

Your phone number (required for order as back-up contact method):

Please check carefully that you have entered your phone number correctly.

Please fill out this field.

Notes (optional - for additional message or information about your order):

Close

Enquire about this book

×

The Book of Ramallah: A City in Short Fiction

by Maya Abu Al-Hayat (Editor)

Your name:

Please fill out this field.

Your email address

Please check carefully that you have entered your email correctly

Please fill out this field.

Your phone number (optional):

Your message:

Please fill out this field.

(optional) If you are interested in ordering this book, would your order be for collection or mail-order? Select type of order : Collect from the shop - I live in or can visit Liverpool Mail-order - send by post

Close

In booklists: Short Story Collections and Novellas, World Fiction - Palestine,
In categories: