For those confused by the current conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, In Search of Fatima is essential reading. An intimate and personal narrative presented, unusually, from the point of view of a Palestinian woman, the book reflects the author's personal experiences of displacement and loss against a backdrop of the major political events which have shaped the destiny of the Middle East.

The war that ended with the establishment of the State of Israel compelled Ghada Karmi's family to leave Jerusalem when she was a child - to live, ironically enough, in Golders Green, a Jewish neighbourhood in north London. Her attempts at assimilation into English society were gradually thwarted by both internal and external influences: the frustration of watching her mother cling to Palestinian social customs in London, and political events in the world she had left - the Suez crisis and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in particular – prompted a growing sense of Arab identity and a re-examination of her sense of belonging in Britain. In the 1970s, this disillusionment was channelled into political activism; she established Palestine Action in London and became a regular visitor to the Middle East, meeting Yasser Arafat and PLO officials. Yet, as a westernised Arab woman she never quite fitted in and the realities of Palestinian political life were quite different to her experiences in London. The Palestine she remembered from her youth seemed lost forever. Returning to Jerusalem in the 1990s to find the house where she was born, Dr Karmi finds she must re-examine her past and face an unpalatable truth about herself…

In Search of Fatima is a powerful biographical story, but it is also a book which transcends its author's own experience. It speaks for the millions of displaced people all over the world who have lived suspended between their old and new countries, fitting into neither. An account not of the physical hardship and abuse suffered by many refugees, this is rather an exploration of the subtler privations of psychological displacement and loss of identity.

The book, which has been widely acclaimed, sold out in its first and second printing. The paperback edition will be published on February 25th^t.

Publication date: 24 October 2002 Hardback Price: £16 ISBN: 1-85984-694 7. Paperback date: May 2004.

For further information or to order, please contact Gavin Everall (gavine@verso.co.uk) or Fiona Price (fionap@verso.co.uk), telephone +44 207 437 3546.

WHAT EDWARD SAID ABOUT GHADA KARMI'S ACCLAIMED MEMOIR IN SEARCH OF FATIMA:

Ghada Karmi’s stunning new book is remarkable for several reasons. In the first place, it is extraordinarily well-written and, as one might say of a thriller, is a real page-turner. Second, it is the frank and amazingly honest story of a Palestinian woman of exceptional self-awareness. Yes, it is a story of exile and displacement, but it is also the story of residence in pre-1948 Palestine, rich in detail and human experience, but totally free of sentimentality and the usual cant about the good old days. Karmi is excellent on the quality of family and even communal life in Mandatory Palestine, inflected as both were by the tensions between Jew and Arab that were ultimately to result in the victory of the former and the dispersal and dispossession of the latter. Third, Karmi is a superb guide as well as explicator of human action under those circumstances. Never hectoring or hortatory, she has a wonderfully subtle way of showing how in thousands of different ways the political and the personal intermesh. This she does with a skill and insight that could be a novelist’s envy. Lastly, and perhaps most compellingly, her memoir is the story of a fascinating woman encountering as well as negotiating the obstacles and the tragedies of family life in exile. If it is a truism to say that no one endures such a catastrophe as that of 1948 with anything except great difficulty, it is certainly not always true that special individuals can make something humanly rich and interesting out of such dire stuff. Ghada Karmi most certainly has, and we are lucky that we have her book for that very reason.

In Search of Fatima is, I believe, the first account in English of the suffering endured by an ordinary Palestinian family, but Ghada Karmi's compelling and beautifully written narrative is more than a personal memoir. It enables the reader to understand and to empathise with the psychological dislocation of exile that continues to fuel the Palestinian cause.

Karmi's great achievement is to humanise the Palestinian predicament. Violent uprooting and exile have permanent psychological effects, which, as the Jewish people discovered, are not necessarily assuaged by the passage of time. We need counter-narratives like this, because we have recently learnt that it is not only parochial but also dangerous to ignore the pain and rights of others. Karen Armstrong, Independent

"Ghada Karmi writes simply and poignantly. Hers is a story of our time, about exile and dispossession, and how she has come to be neither British nor quite Arab." Jewish Chronicle

"A very timely book in the current political situation...This should serve to remind people just what the big fuss in the Middle East is all about." Ahdaf Soueif, Times Literary Supplement

"...an engrossing and remarkably frank account ..." MultiCultural Review

"Karmi's memoirs are about uneasy assimilation ... For Karmi, exile and unrequited love create a chimera for which she searched unsuccessfully during the 1970's, when she became politically active." Guardian

hd
	IN SEARCH OF FATIMA A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi For those confused by the current conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, In Search of Fatima is essential reading. An intimate and personal narrative presented, unusually, from the point of view of a Palestinian woman, the book reflects the author's personal experiences of displacement and loss against a backdrop of the major political events which have shaped the destiny of the Middle East. The war that ended with the establishment of the State of Israel compelled Ghada Karmi's family to leave Jerusalem when she was a child - to live, ironically enough, in Golders Green, a Jewish neighbourhood in north London. Her attempts at assimilation into English society were gradually thwarted by both internal and external influences: the frustration of watching her mother cling to Palestinian social customs in London, and political events in the world she had left - the Suez crisis and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in particular – prompted a growing sense of Arab identity and a re-examination of her sense of belonging in Britain. In the 1970s, this disillusionment was channelled into political activism; she established Palestine Action in London and became a regular visitor to the Middle East, meeting Yasser Arafat and PLO officials. Yet, as a westernised Arab woman she never quite fitted in and the realities of Palestinian political life were quite different to her experiences in London. The Palestine she remembered from her youth seemed lost forever. Returning to Jerusalem in the 1990s to find the house where she was born, Dr Karmi finds she must re-examine her past and face an unpalatable truth about herself… In Search of Fatima is a powerful biographical story, but it is also a book which transcends its author's own experience. It speaks for the millions of displaced people all over the world who have lived suspended between their old and new countries, fitting into neither. An account not of the physical hardship and abuse suffered by many refugees, this is rather an exploration of the subtler privations of psychological displacement and loss of identity. The book, which has been widely acclaimed, sold out in its first and second printing. The paperback edition will be published on February 25th^t. Publication date: 24 October 2002 Hardback Price: £16 ISBN: 1-85984-694 7. Paperback date: May 2004. For further information or to order, please contact Gavin Everall (gavine@verso.co.uk) or Fiona Price (fionap@verso.co.uk), telephone +44 207 437 3546. Also available from Amazon.com and all leading bookstores. --------------------------------------------------------- *WHAT EDWARD SAID ABOUT GHADA KARMI'S ACCLAIMED MEMOIR IN SEARCH OF FATIMA:* Ghada Karmi’s stunning new book is remarkable for several reasons. In the first place, it is extraordinarily well-written and, as one might say of a thriller, is a real page-turner. Second, it is the frank and amazingly honest story of a Palestinian woman of exceptional self-awareness. Yes, it is a story of exile and displacement, but it is also the story of residence in pre-1948 Palestine, rich in detail and human experience, but totally free of sentimentality and the usual cant about the good old days. Karmi is excellent on the quality of family and even communal life in Mandatory Palestine, inflected as both were by the tensions between Jew and Arab that were ultimately to result in the victory of the former and the dispersal and dispossession of the latter. Third, Karmi is a superb guide as well as explicator of human action under those circumstances. Never hectoring or hortatory, she has a wonderfully subtle way of showing how in thousands of different ways the political and the personal intermesh. This she does with a skill and insight that could be a novelist’s envy. Lastly, and perhaps most compellingly, her memoir is the story of a fascinating woman encountering as well as negotiating the obstacles and the tragedies of family life in exile. If it is a truism to say that no one endures such a catastrophe as that of 1948 with anything except great difficulty, it is certainly not always true that special individuals can make something humanly rich and interesting out of such dire stuff. Ghada Karmi most certainly has, and we are lucky that we have her book for that very reason. Edward W. Said In Search of Fatima is, I believe, the first account in English of the suffering endured by an ordinary Palestinian family, but Ghada Karmi's compelling and beautifully written narrative is more than a personal memoir. It enables the reader to understand and to empathise with the psychological dislocation of exile that continues to fuel the Palestinian cause. Karmi's great achievement is to humanise the Palestinian predicament. Violent uprooting and exile have permanent psychological effects, which, as the Jewish people discovered, are not necessarily assuaged by the passage of time. We need counter-narratives like this, because we have recently learnt that it is not only parochial but also dangerous to ignore the pain and rights of others. Karen Armstrong, Independent "Ghada Karmi writes simply and poignantly. Hers is a story of our time, about exile and dispossession, and how she has come to be neither British nor quite Arab." *Jewish Chronicle* "A very timely book in the current political situation...This should serve to remind people just what the big fuss in the Middle East is all about." Ahdaf Soueif, Times Literary Supplement "...an engrossing and remarkably frank account ..." *MultiCultural Review* "Karmi's memoirs are about uneasy assimilation ... For Karmi, exile and unrequited love create a chimera for which she searched unsuccessfully during the 1970's, when she became politically active." *Guardian*
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IN SEARCH OF FATIMA

A Palestinian Story