Strangers In The House by Raja Shehadeh

From The Week of November 14, 2010

It is a fascination of mine to imagine what my life would've been like had I been born elsewhere, bathed by different suns, shaped by different customs, and enchained by different laws. Would there remain, somewhere inside me, some measure of the man I am today, or are we all just products of our environments, our personalities and prejudices assembled out of cultural norms? Perhaps this is a question Mr. Shehadeh has asked himself because it's clear that, while he has the passion and the intellect to have happily succeeded in the West, he was born into a part of the world antithetical to peace, a world which gives only lip service to the law he loves so much.

Strangers In The House is Mr. Shehadeh's chronicle of his life in occupied Palestine. Though he can trace his family lineage back to his grandfather who was a judge for the British when they owned this part of the world, the bulk of the narrative is taken up with the universal conflicts and rivalries that crop up between fathers and sons. Mr. Shehadeh and his father, though both lawyers, chose different paths in the pursuit of justice, the son believing he can work within the Jewish system the father refusing to yield an inch. It is a disagreement made all the more poignant and tragic when Mr. Shehadeh's father is assassinated and the reader watches as Mr. Shehadeh's belief in the Israeli sense of justice is eroded and then destroyed by their inaction on the case.

Though the assassination and the extent to which Mr. Shehadeh is shaped by it dominate this tale, he has also movingly captured his own youth amongst constant conflict. The cities, the attitudes, the family members, the universal themes... They are all here, potently, tragically. For it's clear that Mr. Shehadeh is a stand-in for so many people in the world who want nothing more than to live lives untouched by strife. And yet for some, strife is all they know, so much so that they never have the chance to learn who they are without its everpresent pall occluding the light of freedom. (4/5 StarsFrom The Week of November 14, 2010
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