Mapping My Return: A Palestinian MemoirOxford University Press, 2016 - 332 Seiten Salman Abu Sitta, who has single-handedly made available crucial mapping work on Palestine, was just ten years old when he left his home near Beersheba in 1948, but as for many Palestinians of his generation, the profound effects of that traumatic loss would form the defining feature of his life from that moment on. In this rich and moving memoir, Abu Sitta draws on oral histories and personal recollections to vividly evoke the vanished world of his family and home from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the British withdrawal from Palestine and subsequent war. Alongside accounts of an idyllic childhood spent on his family's farm estate Abu Sitta gives a personal and very human face to the dramatic events of 1930s and 1940s Palestine, conveying the acute sense of foreboding felt by Palestinians as Zionist ambitions and militarization expanded under the mandate. Following his family's flight to Gaza during the 1948 mass exodus of Palestinians from their homes, Abu Sitta continued his schooling and university education in Cairo, where he witnessed the heady rise of Arab nationalism after the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952 and the momentous events surrounding the Israeli invasion of Sinai and Gaza in 1956. With warmth and humor, he chronicles his peripatetic exile's existence, as an engineering student in Nasser's Egypt, his crucial, formative years in 1960s London, his life as a family man and academic in Canada, and several sojourns in Kuwait, all against the backdrop of seismic political events in the region, including the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the 1991 Gulf War. Abu Sitta's narrative is imbued throughout with a burning sense of justice, a determination to recover and document what rightfully belongs to his people, an aim given poignant expression in his painstaking cartographic and archival work on Palestine, for which he is justifiably acclaimed. |
Inhalt
The Source alMain 2 Seeds of Knowledge 1 | 1 |
The Talk of the Hearth | 23 |
Europe Returns to the Holy Land | 35 |
The Conquest | 61 |
The Rupture | 73 |
The Carnage | 83 |
Life as a Refugee | 95 |
Crossing the Line to Return | 109 |
Britannia Rules the Waves | 173 |
Building the Country | 201 |
The Naksa and Eskimo Land | 213 |
Working with the Facts on the Ground | 233 |
On the Political Front | 243 |
The Invisible Face of the Enemy Takes Shape | 255 |
Charting the Land | 269 |
Wakeup Call | 297 |
Egyptian Days | 121 |
The Funeral Town | 135 |
The Long Desert Walk | 149 |
My Battlefield | 157 |
The Last Mile | 311 |
Notes | 321 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir, with a New Afterword SALMAN ABU. SITTA Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2025 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Abdullah Abu Sitta al-Arish al-Ma‘in Amman Arab armistice arrived asked Atlas of Palestine attack bayyara became Beersheba Beirut brother Burayr Cairo daughter Deir al-Balah Egypt Egyptian el-Aref engineer English face father forces friends Gamal Abd al-Nasser Gaza Strip girl guest Hajj Hamed heard Hussein Ibrahim Ibrahim Abu Lughod Israel Israeli Jaffa jeep Jerusalem Jewish Jews journey karm Kfar Darom Khan Yunis killed kilometers knew Kuwait land later leaders letter lived London looked machine guns maps massacre mother Mousa Muhammad Muslim Brotherhood Nakba Nasser National night Nirim occupation officer Palestine Palestinian Palmach police political Rafah Rania refugee camp right of return road Saqr Sheikh Nuran Sinai sister soldiers started station stayed story talking tanks told took town village visited Wadi walked wanted wrote young Zionist