Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem

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Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem Sahar Hamouda Category: History Type: Hardback Illustrations: 47 b&w photographs Size: 216 x 138 mm Page extent: 144pp ISBN-13: 978-1-85964-233-7 Price: £14.99 Published: January 2010

About this book Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem is the saga of a Palestinian family living in Jerusalem during the British mandate, and its fate in the diaspora following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The story is told by two voices: a mother, who was a child in Jerusalem in the 1930s, and her daughter, who comments on her mother’s narrative. The real hero of the book, however, is the family home in Old Jerusalem, which was built in the 15th century and which still stands today. Within its walls lived the various members of the extended family whose stories the narrative reveals: parents, children, stepmothers, stepsisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and cousins. However, this is no idealized, nostalgic narrative of perfect characters or an idyllic past, but a truthful rendition of family life under occupation, in a holy city that was conservative to the extreme. Against a backdrop of violence, much social history is revealed as an authoritarian father, a submissive mother, brothers who were resistance fighters, and an imaginative child struggled to lead a normal life among enemies. That became impossible in 1948, when the narrator, by then a young girl studying in Beirut, realized she could not go home. She travelled to Cairo, where she had to start a new life under difficult conditions, and reconcile herself to the idea of exile. About the author Sahar Hamouda is Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Translation at Pharos University in Alexandria, Egypt. She is also Director of the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies, and Deputy Director of the Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center, both at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Dr Hamouda has written numerous articles on English, comparative and postcolonial literature, and also translates fiction. Her publications on the modern history of Alexandria include Omar Toussoun: Prince of Alexandria and Victoria College: a History Revealed. She is co-editor of Voices from Cosmopolitan Alexandria and The Birth of the Seventh Art in Alexandria, and of the Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center monographs. Ordering information To order, please contact NBN international: Tel. +44 (0) 1752 202301. Fax. +44 (0) 1752 202333. Email. [email protected]

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