A Rift in Time

“Mr. Shehadeh mourns a land lost. For [T.E.] Lawrence, Palestine was ‘a collection of small irritating hills, crushed together pell-mell’ but for Mr. Shehadeh, as in his prize-winning Palestinian Walks (2008), the landscape is his inspiration and solace, a history book waiting to be read. Almond trees mark Palestinian villages long gone, their drifts of white blossom gliding to the ground ‘in utter, hushed silence’…Mr. Shehadeh’s reverence for Palestine’s land and history renders it holy anew.” —The Economist