
In Search of Fatima
A Palestinian Story
Ghada Karmi(Author)
Verso Books (Publisher)
Published on 9. April 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
480 pages
978-1-80429-709-4 (ISBN)
Description
Born in Jerusalem, Ghada Karmi and her family were forced out of their home in 1948. They shared the fate of the thousands of Palestinians who, in the Nakba, were dispossessed and driven from land lived on for generations. In this moving memoir, Karmi charts their journey from Jerusalem to Golders Green, in north London, and their struggle to put down roots in alien soil. A quest for identity haunts her search for security far from home. Speaking for the vast number of people displaced worldwide, her story is a powerful exploration of the psychological pain of exile.
Reviews / Votes
Ghada Karmi's stunning memoir is remarkable. Extraordinarily well-written, it is the amazingly honest story of a Palestinian woman of exceptional self-awareness. Hers is a story of exile and displacement ... rich in detail and human experience. Karmi is excellent on the quality of family and even communal life in Mandatory Palestine ... she also has a wonderfully subtle way of showing how in thousands of different ways the political and the personal intermesh, and this she does with a skill and insight that could be a novelist's envy. -- Edward W. Said One of the finest, most eloquent and painfully honest memoirs of the Palestinian exile and displacement, which western power and its creature, Israel, have normalised. * New Statesman * Ghada Karmi writes simply and poignantly. Here is a story of our time, exile and dispossession, and how she has come to be neither British nor quite Arab. * Jewish Chronicle * A very timely book in the current political situation ... This should serve to remind people just what the big fuss in the Middle East is all about. -- Ahdaf Soueif * Times Literary Supplement * ... an engrossing and remarkably frank account ... * MultiCultural Review * This is an important memoir, beautifully written by an intelligent, sensitive woman ... It should help those of us who do not understand why growing numbers of Muslims and not a few Christians have lost faith with Western pretensions of fairness. * Financial Times * Keenly observed, fierce, honest and yet light of touch. * Economist * Karmi's great achievement is to humanise the Palestinian predicament. Violent uprooting and exile have permanent psychological effects, which, as the Jewish people discovered, are not necessarily assuaged by the passage of time. We need counter-narratives like this, because we have recently learnt that it is not only parochial but also dangerous to ignore the pain and rights of others. * Independent *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
386 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80429-709-4 (9781804297094)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition

Book
07/2009
2nd Edition
Verso Books
€53.46
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Ghada Karmi was born in Jerusalem and trained as a doctor of medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Her previous books include Jerusalem Today: What Future for the Peace Process? and the best-selling In Search of Fatima. She writes frequently for the Guardian and the Nation.
Content
Acknowledgements
Author's Note
Introduction
Prologue
Part One PALESTINE
Pan Two ENGLAND
Part Three IN SEARCH OF FATIMA
Epilogue
Author's Note
Introduction
Prologue
Part One PALESTINE
Pan Two ENGLAND
Part Three IN SEARCH OF FATIMA
Epilogue