In My Mother's Footsteps

288 paĝoj

Lingvo: English

Eldonita je 14-a de decembro 2021 de Octopus Publishing Group.

ISBN:: 978-1-909770-64-5

(1 recenzo)

‘Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land in different soils that become their reluctant homes’ my mother once told me. As a small child, I looked up at my mother and clutched her hand. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.

When Mona moved from California to Ramallah to teach conflict resolution in a school for a year, she kept a journal. Within its pages, she wrote her impressions of her homeland, a place she had only experienced through her mother’s memories.

As she settled into her teaching role, getting to know her students and the challenges they faced living in a militarized, occupied town, Mona also embarked on a personal pilgrimage to …

‘Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land in different soils that become their reluctant homes’ my mother once told me. As a small child, I looked up at my mother and clutched her hand. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.

When Mona moved from California to Ramallah to teach conflict resolution in a school for a year, she kept a journal. Within its pages, she wrote her impressions of her homeland, a place she had only experienced through her mother’s memories.

As she settled into her teaching role, getting to know her students and the challenges they faced living in a militarized, occupied town, Mona also embarked on a personal pilgrimage to find her mother’s home in Jerusalem.

Mona had dreamed of being guided by her mother down the old souqs, and the leafy streets of her neighborhood, listening to the muezzin’s call for prayer and the medley of church bells. But after fifty-nine years of exile, it was Mona’s mother who held her daughter’s hand as they visited Jerusalem together, walking the narrow cobblestone alleys of the Old City. Their roles were reversed. Mona had become her Mama’s legs and her memory – and the one to tell her story going forward.

In My Mother’s Footsteps is a moving and heart-rending journey of a daughter discovering her roots and recovering her mother’s beloved past. It’s also an intimate and tender account of daily life for Palestinians as never seen before. For fans of The Bookseller of Kabul and The Beekeeper of Aleppo.

2 eldonoj

Stephanie Jane recenzis In My Mother's Footsteps de Mona Hajjar Halaby

A poignant memoir

5 steloj

In My Mother's Footsteps is a poignant memoir of loss and survival, of a people systematically ousted from their homes and of how those people's children and grandchildren are still traumatised by the way in which they were - and still are - treated in their occupied homeland. This book gave me an authentic first-person insight into the oppression I read about fictionally in Occupied by Joss Sheldon and My Name Is Adam by Elias Khoury. Through her own memories, family anecdotes and letters from her mother, Mona Hajjar Halaby emotionally describes how the 1948 Nakba, the violent Israeli cleansing of Palestinians from their homes, directly resulted in her family's sixty year exile. It was particularly saddening for me to understand how the open, tolerant and multicultural Palestine of the 1940s and earlier has been warped into impoverished, isolated communities that still remain and to understand how much ancient Arabic …

In My Mother's Footsteps is a poignant memoir of loss and survival, of a people systematically ousted from their homes and of how those people's children and grandchildren are still traumatised by the way in which they were - and still are - treated in their occupied homeland. This book gave me an authentic first-person insight into the oppression I read about fictionally in Occupied by Joss Sheldon and My Name Is Adam by Elias Khoury. Through her own memories, family anecdotes and letters from her mother, Mona Hajjar Halaby emotionally describes how the 1948 Nakba, the violent Israeli cleansing of Palestinians from their homes, directly resulted in her family's sixty year exile. It was particularly saddening for me to understand how the open, tolerant and multicultural Palestine of the 1940s and earlier has been warped into impoverished, isolated communities that still remain and to understand how much ancient Arabic history and culture was both destroyed and denied by the people who now live on that land and, in many cases, in the very same houses from which Palestinians were ousted.

I felt Halaby related particularly well her internal anguish at being overlooked and unseen within her own homeland. I was frequently surprised at her polite restraint when faced with people who blithely believed official propaganda about how Palestine had been prior to its being split in 1948 (it certainly wasn't a wasteland!), and with the daily grind of obstructive bureaucracy and ridiculous rules for Palestinians today. Her rage is palpable, but this book is a balanced account, not a tirade. I was wearily ashamed to spot too that historic high-handed British interference was the root of the present day impasse. Is there anywhere in the world we didn't march into and wreck?

I appreciated the varied aspects of Halaby's Palestine experience that she chose to share with readers. In My Mother's Footsteps comprises an intensely personal family history, but we are also given an insider's view of the year she spent working within a Palestinian school. Halaby's specialisation in conflict resolution would seem to have been tailor-made for this opportunity, but her realisation of just how negatively affected the children are by the extreme violence they have witnessed made for uncomfortable reading.

I think there is dawning awareness globally of the plight of Palestinian people and a sense that the international community needs to step up. The events of the Nakba should be widely known and understood beyond the Palestinian diaspora and I think In My Mother's Footsteps is a valuable resource for spreading the word. I was both impressed and moved by Halaby's memoir.

Temoj

Asia, history