Madafeh – Book Event – Fida Jiryis – author of the book “Stranger in My Own Land”

After the 1993 Oslo Accords, a handful of Palestinians were allowed to return to their hometowns in Israel. Fida Jiryis and her family were among them.

This beautifully written memoir tells the story of their journey, which is also the story of Palestine, from the Nakba to the present—a seventy-five-year tale of conflict, exodus, occupation, return and search for belonging, seen through the eyes of one writer and her family. Jiryis reveals how her father, Sabri, a PLO leader and advisor to Yasser Arafat, chose exile in 1970 because of his work. Her own childhood in Beirut was shaped by regional tensions, the Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Israeli invasion, which led to her mother’s death. Thirteen years later, the family made an unexpected return to Fassouta, their village of origin in the Galilee. But Fida, twenty-two years old and full of love for her country, had no idea what she was getting into.

Stranger in My Own Land chronicles a desperate, at times surreal, search for a homeland between the Galilee, the West Bank and the diaspora, asking difficult questions about what the right of return would mean for the millions of Palestinians waiting to come ‘home’.

About Fida Jiryis
Fida Jiryis is a Palestinian author living in Ramallah. She grew up in Lebanon and Cyprus, the daughter of Palestinian intellectual and leader, Sabri Jiryis. As her family fled Israel’s oppression and wars, Fida’s life has spanned the full spectrum of the Palestinian people’s forced fragmentation: in Israel, the West Bank and the diaspora. Her writings include several collections of Arabic short stories; a contribution to the book, Kingdom of Olives and Ash, a Washington Post bestseller; and Ha-Cluv (The Cage), a Hebrew translation of her short stories published this year. Her most recent book, Stranger in My Own Land, describes her and her family’s remarkable life journey which is, in many respects, the story of Palestine.