A review of “Seeking Palestine: New Writings on Exile and Home”

As I explore autofiction, I’m also doing the fun thing of looking back at books I’ve already read that I think can be considered that and curating these selections here, for you and for myself. One of them is a non-fiction collection titled “Seeking Palestine: New Writings on Exile and Home,” edited by Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh, published by Olive Branch Press in 2013.

Whenever I think of the idea of “home” and its complicated relationship with the self, I think of how it’s difficult to discuss this in a clear sense: how much do we remember of our homes, how much do we want to forget? How do we write about it, and how do we imagine it?

Of course, as I say this I’m not at all trying to draw parallels or take attention away from their unique experiences. Instead, I’m in appreciation of this book because it gives a language to the idea of home and the experience of exile rooted in the lives of Palestinians.

Back in 2024, the goal of my books podcast became to center Palestinian literature. This non-fiction collection, which I’m so fortunate to have read, brings together diverse voices: of poets, novelists, scholars but also an architect, a physician and an artist. 

All of them give us a personal account of what Palestine means to them and what it means for them to be Palestinians. As a writer, it gave me inspiration and grace and words on how to articulate my complicated relationship with “home.”

If you want to know more about the history of Palestine and the experience of Palestinians as they were displaced from their lands and dispossessed of their homes, this edited collection is a good start.

p.s. please excuse the beginning few minutes of my lacklustre intro, before I got into the book. I think it was one of those days.