Strangers in the house - Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh was born into a successful Palestinian family with a beautiful house overlooking the Mediterranean. When the state of Israel was formed in 1948 the family were driven out to the provincial town of Ramallah. There Shehadeh grew up in the shadow of his father, a leading civil rights lawyer. He vowed not to become involved in politics or law but inevitably did so and became an important activist himself. In 1985 his father was stabbed to death. The Israeli police failed to investigate the murder properly and Shehadeh, by then a lawyer, set about solving the crime that destroyed his family. In Strangers in the House, Shehadeh recounts his troubled and complex relationship with his father and his experience of exile - of being a stranger in his own land. It is a remarkable memoir that combines the personal and political to devastating effect.

Raja Shehadeh is Palestine's leading writer. He is also a lawyer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq. Shehadeh is the author of several acclaimed books including Strangers in the House and Occupation Diaries and winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize for Palestinian Walks (all Profile). He lives in Ramallah in Palestine.

A sad, dignified book. Shehadeh writes with great clarity and simplicity, but no bitterness, more in sorrow than in anger about the unhappy history of his family and country.
Independent

A remarkable human document that explains better than a hundred political treatises why there is still no peace in the Middle East
Amos Elon

A book with a huge sensory impact
Financial Times

Its intimate portrayal of one family's history offers important insights into the wider Palestinian story
New Statesman - Stephen Howe

Distinctive and truly impressive
Economist