In 1996 Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti went back to his home for the first time since exile following the Six-Day War in 1967, and wrote a poignant and incisive account of the exile’s lot in the acclaimed memoir I Saw Ramallah. In 2003 he returned to Ramallah to introduce his Cairo-born son, Tamim Barghouti, to his Palestinian family. I Was Born There, I Was Born Here traces Barghouti’s own life in recent years and in the past—his early life in Palestine, his expulsion from Cairo and exile to Budapest, marriage and the birth of his son, Tamim, and then the young man’s own expulsion from Cairo—and tells the story of the Palestinian journey of father and son. Ranging freely back and forth in time, Barghouti weaves into his poetically crafted account sensitive evocations of Palestinian history and daily life. I Was Born There, I Was Born Here is destined, like its predecessor, to become a classic.
I Was Born There, I Was Born Here
In 1996 Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti went back to his home for the first time since exile following the Six-Day War in 1967, and wrote a poignant
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Mourid Barghouti was born in the West Bank in 1944, and graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University in 1967. His poems have been published in Beirut, Amman, and Cairo since 1972, and his Collected Works were published in Cairo in 1997. He lives in Cairo. Ahdaf Soueif was born in Cairo and educated in Egypt and England. She is the bestselling author of In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Edward W. Said, an internationally renowned literary and cultural critic, is university professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of many books, including Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism.
Humphrey Davies
Humphrey Davies is the translator of a number of Arabic novels, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (AUC Press, 2004). He has twice been awarded the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
