ONCE UPON A COUNTRY 

                                                                                                                                                       
ONCE UPON A COUNTRY
Sari Nusseibeh with Anthony David

                                                                                                                                                     
Hardback, 5 November 2007 
£20.00, 560pp,  978 1 905559 05 3





Sari Nusseibeh's autobiography is the story of his country

Sari Nusseibeh's family history is inextricably interwoven with the city of Jerusalem, and his own life with the Palestinian nationalist struggle.

A dreamer by nature, he was always curious about what lay beyond the barbed wire of No Man's Land of divided East Jerusalem, and only too aware of the competing claims of the three great religions in his beloved Old City.

Reluctantly, he became involved in politics, managing to be termed "the smiling face of Palestinian terror" by some Israelis whilst also provoking Palestinian death threats - such were the angry responses to his independent thinking. 

Through his deeply moving personal story, Nusseibeh reveals the terrible consequences of war, partition and terrorism.  He also charts, from the inside, the life of the embattled Palestinian leadership under Arafat, with a penetrating analysis of the workings of the Palestinian Authority.

Sari Nusseibeh is a philosopher and the President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem.  In 2002 he co-founded The People’s Voice, an Israeli-Palestinian grass-roots organisation which advocates peace between Israel and Palestine.  He was the PLO's chief representative in Jerusalem in 2001-2.


'Sari Nusseibeh's formidable achievement - his articulation of a liberal nationalism, his championship of nonviolence in the midst of savagery, his humane understanding of an inhumane predicament - leaves a drop of despair, because of how exceptional it is'.
     Leon Wieseltier, Sunday Book Review, The New York Times


Reviews

The Guardian - Ian Black
The Guardian - Jonathan Wittenberg
The Independent
Times Higher Education
A lyrical Memoir


Upcoming Events

Sari Nusseibeh talks with Jon Snow at Jewish Book Week
Sari Nusseibeh in conversation with Tom Sperlinger at Bath Literary Festival


Interviews

Interview published in the Israel at 60 supplement of the Jewish Chronicle, April 2008
Sari Nusseibeh speaks with Sir David Frost on Al Jazeera