Forgotten

An elegy to memory: what is memorialised, what is not, and why

Shehadeh is engaged, forensic, alert to history's weight but unwilling to let it crush him... Shehadeh's books are like beacons held up against the darkness of Israeli oppression. Forgotten is perhaps the brightest light of all

Again and again, I thought of WG Sebald as I read Forgotten. The resemblance lies not only in the mournful elegance of the prose but also in its method: a meditative excavation of history embedded in the landscape

A heartbreaking, hopeful look at how Palestinian culture endures in spite of the occupation

Slim but profound

An illuminating and poignant journey through Palestine's past and present...a tender and undeterred love letter to a contested land

A valuable record of Palestine, as told by two eloquent and erudite observers

An inspiring account... insightful

Thought-provoking and uplifting, written with such appreciation for Palestinian history and culture, such love of nature and such concern for the environment. While Forgotten works as an entity, each chapter can be read as self-standing reflections on the search for Palestine's hidden places and monuments

This precious jewel of a book is a call to preserve the past in order to secure the future. Its hauntingly evocative prose stays with you long after its final pages have been turned

The authors have a profound and subtle understanding of history [and] remind us of the astonishing heritage of this sliver of land... Shehadeh's political and historical analysis is sharp and unsentimental... A really beautiful book

Praise for Rajah Shehadeh: In his moral clarity and baring of the heart ... Shehadeh recalls writers such as Ghassan Kanafani and Primo Levi

A buoy in a sea of bleakness

Palestine's greatest prose writer

Profoundly personal as well as historically significant ... A quiet and deeply felt book

Insightful, surprising, and moving

Raja Shehadeh is Palestine's leading writer. A lawyer and human rights activist, he is the author of the Orwell Prize-winning Palestinian Walks. Penny Johnson is a founding member of the Institute of Women's Studies at Birzeit University, a Contributing Editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly and author of Companions in Conflict.