Description

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Returning to his home town of Ramallah after long exile, the author is shocked to find the changes wrought, above all, by the Israeli occupation. An account—informative, lyrical and humorous by turn—of his own early life in the town is interwoven with vivid descriptions of the place then and now, against a background of the town’s long and varied history. A poignant evocation of time passing is joined to a sense of the brutal disruption brought about by the ongoing political situation.

About the Author

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Novelist, short story writer and critic, Farouq Wadi was born at al-Bireh in Palestine, twin town to Ramallah, in 1949. He obtained a BA in psychology from the University of Jordan, and has been both highly active in Palestinian and Jordanian literary life and in constant touch with men and women of letters through the wider Arab world. His short story collection Exile, My Love! was published in 1976, and in 1980 his novel Road to the Sea won fame and instant recognition for its profound depiction of the human spirit slowly discovering itself. In 1993 his highly acclaimed novel Smell of Summer was published, followed in 1997 by the present autobiographical novel.

Praise For…

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"Wadi's book is a beautiful, often inevitably melancholy elegy, but there is little regret here and almost no resentment. Despite the political implications of his book, Wadi has not written a litany of complaints. Homes of the Heart, in fact, might best be understood as a portrait of the growth of an artist and an essay on the meaning and pleasure of writing, which is also a form of resistance."

"This book does not make any political conclusions at all, but it's not meant to. It is simply a story about one man and his connection to the place of his birth. In that regard it is both timeless and borderless-it is a story anyone with a love of country would both enjoy and understand."
— Colleen Mondor