Golda Slept Here

Amiry’s (Sharon and My Mother-in-Law) latest is a heart-rending exploration of a tumultuous political situation. The Palestinian people have spent decades coping with exile from their homes and the appropriation of their property by Israeli authorities and settlers. However, this topic is most often explored at the policy level. Amiry makes it deeply personal by looking at how the Israeli-named War for Independence, which the Palestinians call al-Nakba, cost her family (and the families of thousands of others) their homes and associated memories. Unwilling to accept it quietly, Amiry’s relatives and friends revisit these homes, now occupied by Israelis, to recall old memories, talk with the current occupants, and wrestle with the Israeli justice system. These experiences are portrayed sensitively through both prose and poetry. Amiry hooks readers right away through the intensely personal lens of her story. Her narrative is presented with a deft hand, weaving in and out of decades and the lives of various family members. Readers will be thoroughly affected by this intimate generational story that never loses sight of its universal themes. [em](July) [/em]