Surda, Surda! Ramallah, Ramallah! - A Short Story by Khaled Hourani Translated by Andrew Leber - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

Surda, Surda! Ramallah, Ramallah! - A Short Story by Khaled Hourani Translated by Andrew Leber - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat 

The City of Ramallah, population about 70,000, is located in the West Bank area of Palestine, has become a focal point of world wide media This Anthology was published prior to the initiation of the current conflict. In the very informative elegant introduction Maya Abu Al-Hayat tells us the literary history of the city going back to the 16th century up to 2021. She has selected a quite diverse range of stories but each one is informed by the impact of violence brought upon the city from Isreal. The time eras of the stories range from the 1960s to 2021 so political arrangements may vary in stories.

One thing that has happened for 1000s of years is young men armed against much weaker opposition often turn into petty tyrants and sadists. This is magnified when those in authority dehumanise the enemy.

Today's story is set during the Second Intifadas.

"The Second Intifada (Arabic: الانتفاضة الثانية Al-Intifāḍat aṯ-Ṯāniyya; Hebrew: האינתיפאדה השנייה Ha-Intifada ha-Shniya), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada (انتفاضة الأقصى Intifāḍat al-ʾAqṣā), was a major uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation, characterized by a period of heightened violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel between 2000 and 2005.the general triggers for the unrest are speculated to have been centred on the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, which was expected to reach a final agreement on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process in July 2000.[An uptick in violent incidents started in September 2000, after Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound, which is situated atop the Temple Mount in the city of Jerusalem;[the visit itself was peaceful, but, as anticipated, sparked protests and riots that Israeli police put down with rubber bullets and tear gas." From Wikipedia 

A focus of media attention on the current conflict has been the destruction of the medical facilities in the Gaza Strip by The Isreal Defence Forces.

Evidently during the period of this story hospitals were safe.

"‘Abd al-Ghaffar, now in his sixties, had regularly attended physiotherapy sessions ever since his right shoulder and hand had been seized by a sharp pain – the result of a slipped disc in his upper spine. The neurology specialist had prescribed the sessions after a long list of conventional medicines had failed to improve his condition. He’d chosen the treatment centre in the Mukhmas building, in downtown Ramallah." He feels safe there and the doctors in charge tell the patients they are like family.

"The specialist Osama al-Mughmari told them all: ‘No reason to worry, you’re all safe here! You’re like family here – stay in the building until things calm down, and then we’ll see how to get you home.’" 

The brief story bring vividly to reality the dangers and hardships of people just trying to get through their day.

Born in Hebron in 1965, Khaled Hourani is an artist, curator, critic and journalist based in Ramallah. He is the founder of Al Matal Gallery, founding director of the International Academy of Art in Palestine, and a former General Director of the Fine Arts Department in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture. He is also the founder of the Picasso in Palestine project, and co-director of a documentary of the same name. In 2013, he was awarded the Leonore Annenberg Prize Art and Social Change in New York. This is one of his first pieces of published fiction.

Mel Ulm 

 

Badia’s Magic Water - A Short Story by Maya Abu Al-Hayat Translated by Yasmine Seale - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

"Badia's Magic Water" - A Short Story by Maya Abu-Hayat Translated by Yasmine Seale - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat


The City of Ramallah, population about 70,000, is located in the West Bank area of Palestine, has become a focal point of world wide media This Anthology was published prior to the initiation of the current conflict. In the very informative elegant introduction Maya Abu Al-Hayat tells us the literary history of the city going back to the 16th century up to 2021. She has selected a quite diverse range of stories but each one is informed by the impact of violence brought upon the city from Isreal. The time eras of the stories range from the 1960s to 2021 so political arrangements may vary in stories.

One thing that has happened for 1000s of years is young men armed against much weaker opposition often turn into petty tyrants and sadists. This is magnified when those in authority dehumanise the enemy.


Today's story, "Badia’s Magic Water" by Maya Abu Al-Hayat, editor of the collection, is a very powerful unflincing look at the life of a woman, Badia, dedicated to her job of washing the bodies of women who have either died in the Ramallah hospital in which she works or died as a patient. (As I read the story I thought of hospitals bombed in the current conflict. People wishing only to live killed in a war they did not start.)


As Badia washes the bodies, a very important ritual but not a job many want, she wonders about the lives of the women. Badia has developed a magic water that can, many believe, cure illness. When a young woman whose body is unclaimed, Badia sees she has had a child. She wonders if the father poisoned her to get rid of the baby. She is drawn to memories of her own experiences long ago.


"This was in the days of the First Intifada. They got engaged, entered university together, stole moments in rented cars on the roads between the city centre and the university in Birzeit. Those rendezvous were even sweeter than those at the house of her friend, who had not yet become Umm Salama. But Osama was killed in a flash, leaving her with a gift in her stomach. Had her mother not noticed what was happening, she herself would have been killed long ago. Badia does not like to remember how she got out of that disaster. Her mother was clever enough to save her from death, but the foetus died after birth – boy or girl, her mother wouldn’t say and she did not ask. She had felt delivered of a heavy burden when her mother told her it was dead and disappeared into the corridor of the private hospital in Jerusalem which she had snuck her into, with the help of a women’s association specialised in protecting girls of this type.

A terrible void took the place of the disaster. A void from chest to womb that has stayed with her ever since. She has filled it with laughter, with solving the problems of her colleagues, washing the dead, this occupation she walked into after her mother died and she could not find a woman in the hospital to wash and shroud her. She took on the task herself, unafraid. It gave her a serenity she had not had before, a tremendous sense of calm. All of which made her leap to accept a job offer washing the dead. Since that day she has contented herself with a simple life spent observing the sorrows and joys of others"




This a great short story.











Maya Abu Al-Hayat is a Beirut-born Palestinian novelist and poet living in Jerusalem, but working in Ramallah. She has published two poetry books, numerous children’s stories and three novels, including her latest No One Knows His Blood Type (Dar Al-Adab, 2013). She is the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop, an institution that seeks to encourage reading in Palestinian communities through creative writing projects and storytelling with children and teachers. She contributed to, and wrote a forward for A Bird is Not a Stone: An Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Poetry, and is the editor of Comma's Book of Ramallah. - from Comma Press

I feel compelled to share this poem with my readers




"After" A poem by Maya Abu Al-Hayat- Translated by Fady Joudah

What do we do with secrets that remained secret,

with heaping corpses inside us

waiting to completely rot,

with a brimming happiness in smiles

no mirror reflected,

your love

that comes only after love has ended,

with reconciliation

after spatting lovers have died,

and devotion after the means

have become plenty . . .

what do we do with the roads

after the disappearance of paths

behind our hands, and after the discovery of lips

and all that’s left

Mel Ulm

Get Out of My House - A Short Story by Ziad Khadash- Translated by Raph Cormack 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

 The City of Ramallah, population about 70,000, is located in the West Bank area of Palestine, has become a focal point of world wide media  This Anthology was published prior to the initiation of the current conflict. In the very informative elegant introduction Maya Abu Al-Hayat tells us the literary history of the city going back to the 16th century up to 2021. She has selected a quite diverse range of stories but each one is informed by the impact of violence brought upon the residents of Ramallah by contacf with Isrealis.

‘Get Out of my House’, tells of a man who comes home to find a strange woman in his house who is adamant that it’s her house and that he has to leave before her husband returns. Here we glimpse the ephemeral life of the refugee, returning from his home in the camp, leaving his library behind to be ruined by soldiers going through his stuff, and living alone in a city he doesn’t belong where he has to continually prove his identity or his innocence.

There are numerous ways of trying to escape mentally from a Chaotic dangerous environment over which you have little control. In this story we see how this attempt can destroy mental health 

Ziad Khadash is a Palestinian writer. He was born in 1964 in the village of Beit Nabala, and lives in the Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah. Khadash holds a BA in Arabic literature from the University of Jordan and works as a creative writing teacher in schools in Ramallah. He is author of 12 short story collections, the most recent of which was Overwhelmed by Laughter (House of Everything, Haifa). His story ‘Wonderful Reasons to Cry’ was shortlisted for the 2015 Kuwaiti Al-Multaqa Prize for the Short Story.

Mel Ulm

 

Secrets Stroll the City’s Streets - A Short Story by Ahmed Jaber- Translated by Adam Talib 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

 The City of Ramallah, population about 70,000, is located in the West Bank area of Palestine, has become a focal point of world wide media attention. It is under the control of Isreal. This Anthology was published prior to the initiation of the current conflict. In the very informative elegant introduction Maya Abu Al-Hayat tells us the literary history of the city going back to the 16th century up to 2021. She has selected a quite diverse range of stories but each one is informed by the actions of isreali in the city.

One thing that has happened for 1000s of years is young men armed against much weaker opposition often turn into petty tyrants and sadists. This is magnified when those in authority dehumanise the enemy.

Today's story, " Stroll the Streets" by Ahmed Jaber, four pages, is narrated in a very creative fashion. The city of Ramallah is speaking to the reader as well as a street sweeper going about his day. Maybe it is in the mind of the sweeper caused by his great love for Ramallah.  I found it gratifying to follow him on his rounds.  He has a limp and we learn why: 

""He examines the empty streets, which remind him of the First and Second Intifadas. These streets were full of rocks and planks and the remains of burnt tyres back then. He remembers the days and nights he’d spent fighting to keep the Israeli Army Jeeps from entering the city. He thinks about everything he did for me, the city he loves. How he defended me as a resistance fighter and how a bullet in his upper thigh had caused the limp he has now, how he refused to leave me to go work in the Gulf, and how these days he wakes up earlier than most of his neighbours in order to get me ready to meet them like a son changing places with his mother."

Ahmad Jaber holds a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering and is a winner of the Abdul Qattan Foundation Award for Young Writer 2017 for his story collection Mr. Azraq in the Cinema. He has published stories in many local websites and newspapers.

Mel Ulm 

Secrets Stroll the City’s Streets - A Short Story by Ahmed Jaber - Translated by Adam Talib - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

 

The City of Ramallah, population about 70,000, is located in the West Bank area of Palestine, has become a focal point of world wide media attention. This Anthology was published prior to the initiation of the current conflict. In the very informative elegant introduction Maya Abu Al-Hayat tells us the literary history of the city going back to the 16th century up to 2021. She has selected a quite diverse range of stories but each one is informed by the occupation of the city.

Looking back through history, references to Ramallah can be found in records as old as Crusader artefacts. Archaeological evidence suggests there was a village here at least as early as the 16th century, under Ottoman rule, and that it began to thrive towards the end of that era, with the first town council recorded convening in 1908. The name ‘Ramallah’ can be traced back to at least 1186 and is formed from the conjunction of the words raam, meaning hill, and Allah, meaning God.

In Mahmoud Shukeir’s story the protagonist tries to convince himself that he is a man of the city now and that he can do anything that the city’s residents do. Set in the 1960s, when Ramallah was under Jordanian rule but with Israel’s expansionist war drums beating over the horizon, it portrays secret political parties and movements and the first acts of resistance heralded by revolutionary communiqués and protests: a time when identity transcended all. 

Mahmoud Shukair was born in Jerusalem in 1941 and is one of the best-known short story writers in the Arab world, and his stories have been translated into numerous languages. His 45 books include nine short story collections and 13 books for children. He has also written extensively for television, theatre, and print and online media. In 2011, he was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Freedom of Expression. His 2016 novel Praise for the Women of the Family was nominated for the IPAF. He has previously been the editor-in-chief of the weekly Jerusalem newspaper Al-Taliah.

A Tragic Ending - A Short Story by Mahmoud Shukair - Translated by Thoraya El-Rayyes - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

 A Tragic Ending - A Short Story by Mahmoud Shukair - Translated by Thoraya El-Rayyes - 2021 - Included in The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat 

Today's story is the third to be featured from The Book of Ramallah- A City in Short Fiction- edited and introduced by Maya Abu Al-Hayat.

The City of Ramallah, population about 70,000

 is located in the West Bank area of Palestine. Ramallah has become a focal point of world wide media  This Anthology was published prior to the initiation of the current conflict. In the very informative elegant introduction Maya Abu Al-Hayat tells us the literary history of the city going back to the 16th century up to 2021. She has selected a quite diverse range of stories but each one is informed by the occupation of the city.

"Looking back through history, references to Ramallah can be found in records as old as Crusader artefacts. Archaeological evidence suggests there was a village here at least as early as the 16th century, under Ottoman rule, and that it began to thrive towards the end of that era, with the first town council recorded convening in 1908. The name ‘Ramallah’ can be traced back to at least 1186 and is formed from the conjunction of the words raam, meaning hill, and Allah, meaning God. Thus the importance of ‘God’s hill’ might always have been its geography being perched on a hilltop ridge, with cool updrafts, and spectacular views in all directions. " From the introduction 

One thing that has happened for 1000s of years is young men armed against much weaker opposition often turn into petty tyrants and sadists. This is magnified when those in authority dehumanise the enemy.

In Mahmoud Shukeir’s story the protagonist tries to convince himself that he is a man of the city now and that he can do anything that the city’s residents do. Set in the 1960s, before the occupation of the West Bank, when Ramallah was under Jordanian rule but with Israel’s expansionist war drums beating over the horizon, it portrays secret political parties and movements and the first acts of resistance heralded by revolutionary communiqués and protests: a time when identity transcended all.

Mahmoud Shukair was born in Jerusalem in 1941 and is one of the best-known short story writers in the Arab world, and his stories have been translated into numerous languages. His 45 books include nine short story collections and 13 books for children. He has also written extensively for television, theatre, and print and online media. In 2011, he was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Freedom of Expression. His 2016 novel Praise for the Women of the Family was nominated for the IPAF. He has previously been the editor-in-chief of the weekly Jerusalem newspaper Al-Taliah.