In 1996, award-winning Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti returned to his home for the first time since his exile-first in Egypt, then in Hungary-following the Six-Day War in 1967, and wrote I Saw Ramallah, a poignant and acclaimed memoir of the exile's lot. A few years later, he returned to the Occupied Territories to introduce his Cairo-born son, Tamim, to his Palestinian family. Soon after returning to Egypt, Tamim was arrested for taking part in a demonstration against the impending Iraq War, and ironically was held not only in the same Cairo prison his father had occupied before being expelled from Egypt when Tamim was a baby, but in the very same cell. Tamim then felt the same sting of exile as he was banished from Egypt.
Explaining to his son, and to the world, the life decisions he has made, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here illuminates the path of exile across generations. Ranging freely back and forth in time between the 1990s and the present, Barghouti poignantly recalls Palestinian history and daily life while expressing 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." His elegant and expressive prose, beautifully rendered in Humphrey Davies' sensitive translation, is full of life and humor in the face of a culture of death. I Was Born There, I Was Born Here is destined, like its predecessor, to become a classic.

I Was Born There, I Was Born Here

Biographies & Memoirs

Barghouti, Mourid

Arts & Literature

Walker Books

WINNER OF THE NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MEDAL FOR LITERATURE A fierce and moving work and an unparalleled rendering of the human aspects of the Palestinian predicament. Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, the poet Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years in exile—shuttling among 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 home for the first time since the Israeli occupation, Barghouti crosses a wooden bridge over the Jordan River into Ramallah and is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories of the old Palestine as they come up against what he now encounters in this mere “idea of Palestine,” he discovers what it means to be deprived not only of a homeland but of “the habitual place and status of a person.” A tour de force of memory and reflection, lamentation and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is a deeply humane book, essential to any balanced understanding of today’s Middle East.

I Saw Ramallah

SAID, EDWARD W.

Soueif, Ahdaf

Historical

Anchor

Midnight and Other Poems is the first full-length poetry collection to be published in the UK by this remarkable Palestinian writer, previously known to English-language readers for his highly-acclaimed autobiography I Saw Ramallah (Bloomsbury, 2004). Mourid Barghouti has spent many years in exile, and his long poem 'Midnight' is a rich montage of images of the land of his birth and the strong emotional responses to which these images give rise. Here, anger, frustration and despair are juxtaposed with yearning and tenderness in Barghouti's powerful and evocative account of occupation, violence and oppression. The shorter poems which comprise the second half of the book are, by turns, dramatic and hard-hitting, contemplative and reflective, and together present an equally powerful and graphic picture of the poet's homeland. In Radwa Ashour's excellent translation, and with a helpful introduction by Guy Mannes-Abbott who recorded a number of conversations with the poet over a period of several weeks, this selection of Mourid Barghouti's poems marks an important addition to the body of Arabic literature available to English-language readers world-wide.

Midnight and Other Poems (ARC Translation)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Arc Publications

The Palestinian poet recounts his decision to leave his country in 1966 to pursue his studies and his subsequent return to his occupied homeland in 1996. 6 x 9

Amer Univ in Cairo Pr

Book by Barghouti, Mourid, Said, Edward W., Ahdaf Soueif

Ahdaf Soueif

World Literature

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barghouti, Mourid. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Barghouti, Mourid

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barghouti, Mourid. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

I Was Born There, I Was Born Here

I Saw Ramallah

Midnight and Other Poems (ARC Translation)

I Saw Ramallah

I Saw Ramallah