Palestine +100: Stories from a Century After the Nakba

"Memory and imagination are contested territories in this deeply moving collection. Twelve Palestinian authors write stories set 100 years after the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” – during which, as editor Basma Ghalayini writes in her introduction, “Israel declared itself a new-born state on the rubble of Palestinian lives.” Beyond their shared premise, the stories are inventive and dextrous, as brilliant as they are painful — and playful. As often as I wept, I laughed at witty turns of phrase, surprising goofiness, shrugging resilience. There’s also a remarkable compassion for Israelis, for the Israeli experience of being settler-colonists, the psychological damage that entails. Warm and powerful."