A Constant Longing - Memoirs of a Palestinian Woman / with a Foreword by Prof. Rita Sussmuth (Bundestagsprasidentin a.D.) "My dream draws on the future, and reaches across borders and generations... I look to the next generations who will grow up together; generations who can carry this beautiful dream of justice to fruition. What kind of people would we be if we did not believe in a dream of justice and peace for all?," Halima Alaiyan Thomas BeVier, Foresight - Memoir, Foreword Review Fall/Winter issue: "If a movie were made of Halima Alaiyan s dramatic life of dislocation, disappointment, and transformation, it would challenge credulity. In 1948, when she was barely a year old, her village, Ibdis in Palestine, was destroyed by Israeli soldiers. With that, she began a life in exile. First she was shuttled to Egypt, then to Saudi Arabia, and finally to Germany, where, after escaping her abusive husband and their arranged marriage, she became an orthopaedic specialist. Overcoming the harsher aspects for women of Muslim custom, the barriers of language, and family strife would be story enough, but even more remarkable has been Alaiyan s ability to understand and set aside her prejudice of Jews and to gain international recognition for encouraging dialogue between young people in Europe, Israel, and Palestine. She does this through the Talat Alaiyan Foundation, named after a son who died. After visiting a German concentration camp, she understands why the Jews were so obsessed with having their own secure homeland. But, she asks, did they or the international community have the right to expel the people who were already living there and, to this day, deny them their homeland? While, by her standards today, the society she grew up in was regressive for girls and women, it was also loving and supportive. Her mother taught her to always help your siblings and love your family. She speaks fondly of family reunions in Iraq and Gaza. Perhaps, after all else, it s from that she draws her strength." Dr Halima Alaiyan now lives in Berlin and runs her own practice as an orthopaedic specialist. In 2003, she founded the Talat Alaiyan Foundation, which fosters dialogue and under-standing between young people in Europe, Israel and Palestine. She was awarded an Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009.

A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine). On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12–year–old Palestinian–American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought–after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her. Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.

Women, Identity and Religion in Wales is the first comprehensive study of its kind from a present-day perspective. It brings significant and original insights to an understanding of Welsh identity and religion, as well as exploring the distinctive pressures that women in Wales face in their everyday lives. The author provides a qualitatively rich account of the religious and sociological context and interweaves her own experience with that of a number of Welsh women writers, including Menna Elfyn, Jasmine Donahaye and Mererid Hopwood, to offer an in-depth understanding of the dynamic interplay between Welsh female identity and religion. At the heart of the book are conversations with thirteen other women whose lives and experiences reveal how women facing misogyny, repression and stigmatisation are able to respond with resilience and humour. The author concludes that Welsh women have an empowering stereotype, the Strong Woman, and are constructing new identities for themselves beyond the pressures to be respectable and submissive.

A searing portrait of Palestinian life and identity that is at once an exploration of Edward Said's unclaimable past and a testimony to the lives of those living in exile. 125 photos.

First full-scale revision since 1987.

When Jacob Nammar was a young boy growing up in Harret al-Nammareh, his family, his friends, and the streets of his West Jerusalem neighborhood were the center of his life. It wasn’t long, however, before his existence was turned upside down when his family was forced out of their home during al-nakba, the catastrophe that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of nearly 750,000 natives and the destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages and towns. In this heartwarming memoir, Jacob paints a vivid portrait of Palestinian life—from his childhood days in pre-1948 Jerusalem, the struggles of the Palestinian community under Israeli rule, to his ultimate decision to leave for America at age 23. Readers will laugh, cry, and be inspired by this charming coming of age story set amid the backdrop of one of the most tragic historical events that engulfed the region.