East Jerusalem Noir

by Rawya Jarjoura Burbara (Editor)

Overview

In East Jerusalem Noir—published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir—the Akashic Noir Series turns its gaze to one of the world’s most fascinating locales, in this volume from the perspective of Palestinian writers; translated from Arabic

"East Jerusalem's thorny politics run through each of the thirteen stories comprising this sturdy entry in Akashic's long-running regional noir series, which is being published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir . . . Written with passion and empathy, the volume's strength lies in giving voice to the varied experiences of Palestinians who live, work, and write in one of the world's most complicated cities. It's a fascinating glimpse of life under occupation." —Publishers Weekly

 FROM THE EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: "When you move through the streets of Jerusalem today, you will notice that history surrounds you from all sides. You hear Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin from the Dome of the Rock; you hear the bells of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the Christians pray, accompanied by the voices of the Jewish worshippers at the Wailing Wall. You are filled with awe and stand helpless to do anything except feel both joy and sadness at the same time. Your feelings mingle, your thoughts get confused, and you peer at the sky waiting for God's mercy and relief . . . The stories here are varied, and I did not interfere with the writers' content. I asked them to portray the city of Jerusalem as they live it, as they feel it, as they appreciate it, as they fear it, as they want it to be, and as they imagine it in the past, the present, and the future . . . And now we put the black box in your hands! Kindly open it to reveal the secrets of Jerusalem and its people, who wake up to the sound of a forgotten rooster from a previous era to declare the beginning of a new dawn, so that life will not stop recording its new diary entries."

Featuring brand-new stories by: Nuzha Abu Ghosh, Ibrahim Jouhar, Osama Alaysa, Rahaf al-Sa'ad, Ziad Khadash, Mahmoud Shukair, Iyad Shamasnah, Rafiqa Othman, Dima al-Samman, Majid Abu Ghosh, Muhammad Shuraim, Jameel al-Salhout, and Nuzha al-Ramlawi.

Translated from Arabic by: Roger Allen, Marilyn Booth, Catherine Cobham, Raphael Cormack, Sawad Hussain, Dr. Nazih Kassis, Nancy Roberts, and Max Weiss.

East Jerusalem Noir is being published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir, edited by Maayan Eitan. The companion volume explores the city with brand-new stories by Israeli authors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617759857
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	11/07/2023
Series:	Akashic Noir Series
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

RAWYA JARJOURA BURBARA was born in Nazareth in 1969. She currently serves as chief inspector director of Arabic at the Ministry of Education, and is a lecturer in Oranim College’s language department. Burbara is also a writer, and her tenth book, a collection of short stories titled I Do Not Want to Get Used to You, was published in 2021. Her Arabic novel On the Shores of Wandering was translated into Hebrew and published by Pardes in 2020. She edited the collection East Jerusalem Noir.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART I: FATAL CROSSINGS
“The Ceiling of the City" by Nuza Abu Ghosh (Damascus Gate)
“The Scorpion” by Ibrahim Jouhar (Old City)
“Between Two Jerusalems” by Osama Alaysa (Lifta)
“In an Extraordinary City” by Rahaf al-Sa'ad (Wadi Hummus)
"Fleeing from the Assyrian Soldiers" by Ziad Khadash (Alleys of Ancient Jerusalem)

PART II: DREAMING, PRAYING CITY
“City of Love and Loss" by Mahmoud Shukair (Omar Ibn al-Khattab Square)
“An Astronaut in Jerusalem” by Iyad Shamasnah (Jabel Mukaber)
“Diary of a Jerusalem Teacher” by Rafiqa Othman (Al-Sa'diyya)
"The Sun Still Shines" by Dima al-Samman (Musrara)

PART III: MOVING INTO DESPAIR
“This is Jerusalem" by Majid Abu Ghosh (Kafr Aqab)
“Noble Sanctuary” by Muhammad Shuraim (Al-Aqsa Mosque)
“Mosques, Churches, Falafel, Mujaddara” by Jameel al-Sahout (American Colony Hotel)
“Checkpoints of Death” by J.D. Nuza al-Ramlawli (Qalandia Checkpoint)

About the Contributors 

Editorial Reviews

10/16/2023

East Jerusalem’s thorny politics run through each of the 13 stories comprising this sturdy entry in Akashic’s long-running regional noir series, which is being published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir. The stories, each by a Palestinian author, mostly focus on everyday life for the city’s Arab Palestinian residents as they contend with the realities of Israeli occupation, including land confiscation, displacement from their neighborhoods, and travel restrictions. Stories by Ibrahim Jouhar (“The Scorpion”) and Rahaf Al-Sa’ad (“In an Extraordinary City”) deal with the anger and despair families face as they’re forced to relocate before Israeli authorities demolish their homes. In Iyad Shamasna’s “An Astronaut in Jerusalem,” a young boy’s dream of becoming an astronaut is dashed when he bumps against the limitations of movement imposed on his Arab family. Nuhza Abu Ghosh’s “The Ceiling of the City” sees a native of East Jerusalem jailed because he forgot his ID on the way to pray at a local mosque. Crime is largely absent from the collection, which derives most of its conflict from political tensions, but in standard noir tradition, few of the selections have happy endings. Written with passion and empathy, the volume’s strength lies in giving voice to the varied experiences of Palestinians who live, work, and write in one of the world’s most complicated cities. It’s a fascinating glimpse of life under occupation. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"These two varied col­lections of sto­ries, pub­lished simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, are set in a kalei­do­scopic Jerusalem that is impos­si­ble to describe with a sin­gle voice. Both vol­umes attempt to ren­der one of the world’s old­est, bloodi­est, holi­est, and most divid­ed cities . . . It might be said that any story set in a city so steeped in vio­lent his­tory, so scrawled with reli­gious myth, and so flood­lit by divi­sive order is a story about searching, about dark­ness, and about moral qualms—is, in other words, a noir."

on East Jerusalem Noir and West Jerusalem Noir Jewish Book Council

Israelis rarely venture into East Jerusalem, its neighborhoods as foreign as those of a different country. Israeli readers may be uncomfortable with the short stories of East Jerusalem Noir, for they are tales of house demolitions, separation walls, checkpoints, and destroyed villages. But they are also tales of heavenly faiths that call out to residents to fill the emptiness of their lives with prayer . . . The stories tell of the unfulfilled hopes and dreams of East Jerusalem residents, their lives vastly different from those living in the western half of the city.” —Times of Israel

“Editor Burbara presents 13 wrenching tales of life in a city ‘established 7,000 years ago’ that ‘has been attacked 52 times, occupied 44 times, besieged 23 times, and destroyed twice’ . . . The burden of grief carried by those who live in East Jerusalem is poignant and palpable. Such a sharp focus on the misery of the occupation creates a certain constriction in the range of storylines. But Burbara’s contributors are clearly willing to sacrifice the chance to showcase the color and variety of the ancient city in order to tell a harrowing tale of its current distress. Heartfelt and heart-wrenching.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The East Jerusalem stories, edited by Burbara, are tales of everyday oppression, with impersonal government violence thrown in the mix, and the corrosive effects on victims’ psyches . . . VERDICT Rather than collections of crime noir, these are deep dives into the anguished psyche of a grievously divided city.” —Library Journal

"East Jerusalem's thorny politics run through each of the 13 stories comprising this sturdy entry in Akashic's long-running regional noir series, which is being published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir . . . Written with passion and empathy, the volume's strength lies in giving voice to the varied experiences of Palestinians who live, work, and write in one of the world's most complicated cities. It's a fascinating glimpse of life under occupation." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

09/01/2023

Jerusalem, as Israeli novelist Eitan, editor of West Jerusalem, comments, is a city unlike its biblical image. Life there is rough, tense. No bombs go off in these two volumes of short fiction, but reports of gunfire are frequent, and in Ilana Bernstein's West Jerusalem story, "You Can't See the Occupation from Here," an Arab cleaning woman is shot down by accident and then excuses are made up to cover the death. In East Jerusalem, Rahaf al-Sa'ad's "In an Extraordinary City" tells of a Palestinian father who loses the house he built for his family to a demolition order: the courts give him a runaround, the soldiers who order him out laugh at his plight. The East Jerusalem stories, edited by Burbara, are tales of everyday oppression, with impersonal government violence thrown in the mix, and the corrosive effects on victims' psyches. The West Jerusalem stories largely aren't crime stories either (with one exception, a comic caper by Liat Elkayam) but tales of Israeli angst in a world where meaning is in short supply. The best is Bernstein's Kafkaesque tale of hiding one's head to avoid noticing the violence that's happening all around. In general, the Palestinian tales work better than the Israeli ones, several of which are overwritten. But that's probably because the Palestinian experiences are more raw. VERDICT Rather than collections of crime noir, these are deep dives into the anguished psyche of a grievously divided city.—David Keymer

Library Journal

2023-09-09
Editor Burbara presents 13 wrenching tales of life in a city “established 7,000 years ago” that “has been attacked 52 times, occupied 44 times, besieged 23 times, and destroyed twice.”

Ziad Khadash documents the long history of dangers faced by Jerusalem’s occupants in “Fleeing From the Assyrian Soldiers.” But most of the stories here deal with more contemporary threats faced by Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Nuzha Abu Ghosh chronicles the miseries of living under constant surveillance in “The Ceiling of the City.” The agony of negotiating military checkpoints is the focus of “Noble Sanctuary” by Muhammad Shuraim and “Checkpoints of Death” by Nuzha al-Ramlawi. In “Between the Two Jerusalems,” Osama Alaysa recounts the dangers that face Palestinians who, even unwittingly, cross those boundaries unchecked. The simplest tasks, like obtaining health insurance, are impossibly complicated in a city under occupation, as Majid Abu Ghosh illustrates in “This Is Jerusalem.” And owning a home is nearly impossible, as “The Scorpion” by Ibrahim Jouhar, “In an Extraordinary City” by Rahaf al-Sa’ad, and “An Astronaut in Jerusalem” by Iyad Shamasnah all demonstrate. The burden of grief carried by those who live in East Jerusalem is poignant and palpable. Such a sharp focus on the misery of the occupation creates a certain constriction in the range of storylines. But Burbara’s contributors are clearly willing to sacrifice the chance to showcase the color and variety of the ancient city in order to tell a harrowing tale of its current distress.

Heartfelt and heart-wrenching.

Kirkus Reviews

"Israelis rarely venture into East Jerusalem, its neighborhoods as foreign as those of a different country. Israeli readers may be uncomfortable with the short stories of East Jerusalem Noir, for they are tales of house demolitions, separation walls, checkpoints, and destroyed villages. But they are also tales of heavenly faiths that call out to residents to fill the emptiness of their lives with prayer . . . The stories tell of the unfulfilled hopes and dreams of East Jerusalem residents, their lives vastly different from those living in the western half of the city."

Times of Israel