The book is an epic novel that follows Palestinian ex-pat Adam Dannoun and his brush with Blind Mahmoud that spurs an exploration of the past, and what happened to his hometown, the “ghetto” of Lydda in 1948.
There are certain profound events in a nation’s history that leave an indelible mark on all its people. The massacre in two Palestinian refugee camps outside of Beirut, Sabra and Shatila, on September 16, 1982 stands as one of those events.
Hatim Kanaaneh is moved to tears reading the news — both by humanity’s cruelty as well as its heroism.
According to the World Health Organization there is a total of 175,883 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 7,273 known deaths in the 22 countries that make up the eastern Mediterranean region.
At Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport Ibaa Abu Layaa was detained for 15 hours and then sent back home to the West Bank via Jordan after being blacklisted from Lebanon for the rest of her life. “The fracture in my heart will stay there forever,” Abu Layaa says.