Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2023
A gripping,intimate story of one heartbreaking day in Palestine that reveals lives,loves,enmities,and histories in violent collision.
Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem,but tragedy awaits: his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father,Abed,rushes to the chaotic site,only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad's fate,navigating a maze of physical,emotional,and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a Palestinian.
Interwoven with Abed's odyssey are the stories of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and pasts unexpectedly converge: a kindergarten teacher and a mechanic who rescue children from the burning bus; an Israeli army commander and a Palestinian official who confront the aftermath at the scene of the crash; a settler paramedic; ultra-Orthodox emergency service workers; and two mothers who each hope to claim one severely injured boy.
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a deeply immersive,stunningly detailed portrait of life in Israel and Palestine,and an illumination of the reality of one of the most contested places on earth.
Publisher: Penguin Books LtdISBN: 9780241566725Number of pages: 272Weight: 460 gDimensions: 236 x 160 x 34 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Nathan Thrall's book made me walk a lot. I found myself pacing around between chapters,paragraphs and sometimes even sentences just in order to be able to absorb the brutality,the pathos,the steely tenderness,and the sheer spectacle of the cunning and complex ways in which a state can hammer down a people and yet earn the applause and adulation of the civilized world for its actions'- Arundhati Roy
'It is hard to think of another book that gives such a poignant,deeply human face to the ongoing tragedy of Palestine. Thrall's evocation of both a terrible crisis and the daily humiliations of life under occupation is nothing short of heartbreaking'- Adam Hochschild
'This brilliant and heartbreaking book is a masterpiece. It reads like a novel,yet is all sadly true. I finished it in tears'- James Rebanks
'In this luminous story of Palestinians striving to live under Israeli rule,there is much cruelty. But there is also great love - of parents for their children,of lovers for their beloved,and of people for their home. This book is transformative'- Andre Aciman
'This impressive book brings the reader through a detailed set of human histories,relationships and experiences,all stemming out from one horrible incident and one Palestinian family affected by it. It shows us how everything in these Palestinians'daily lives - from the mundane to the catastrophic - has been controlled,contained and shaped under Israeli rule. Amid their struggle to survive,Nathan Thrall documents the best and worst of humanity: pride,bravery,love,stupidity,callousness and cruelty'- Sally Hayden
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