“We do not see our hand in what happens, so we call certain events melancholy accidents when they are the inevitabilities of our projects, and we call other events necessities merely because we will not change our minds.”
~Stanley Cavell
At times heart-breaking and heart-warming, devastating and tender, "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" bends all emotions to its will. Nathan Thrall's work is powered by meticulous research, well-rounded perspectives, and graceful storytelling.
The author manages to weave regional history and geopolitical discussion into a narrative about a horrific bus accident, the students who were lost, and the families who were reduced to rubble in the search to learn their fates.
“‘You’ve turned our autonomy into a prison for us,’ the lead Palestinian negotiator, Abu Ala, said.”
The timely book is aided by a series of extremely useful maps as it seeks to create context for the fraught interactions and the whirlwind nature of life in contested territory.
"A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" unsparingly details the horrors of occupation, the casual cruelty of overt racism -- and the love it takes to manifest the determination needed to persist and exist in their faces.
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