The Parachute Paradox: On Love, Liberation and Imagination. A Memoir From Palestine
322
The Parachute Paradox: On Love, Liberation and Imagination. A Memoir From Palestine
322Hardcover(2nd Second Edition. a New Version ed.)
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Overview
The Parachute Paradox tells the inspiring life story of the renowned award-winning artist and writer Steve Sabella, born under Israeli Occupation in Jerusalem and now living in Berlin. "The Parachute Paradox offers narrative storytelling of the life of the Jerusalemite artist and his experiences under Israeli Occupation. It proposes a subject that is unprecedented in Palestinian literature: the liberation of the self and the homeland through the liberation of the imagination."
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, London
"Steve Sabella takes the entire world for an imagination within the imagination-in alliance with 13th century mystics who develop this vision in order to develop their characteristic poetry and art."
Almut Bruckstein, House of Taswir, Berlin
The number of books about Israel and Palestine published every year can feel oppressive to the average reader. On rare occasions, an original narrative of the conflict, imbued with honesty and sensitivity, is published.
Joseph Dana, The National, UAE
Perhaps the fact that the author is an accomplished artist and photographer explains the volume's elegant appearance. We later discover a young man whose freedom does not exist except as an expression of his art and as an endless love for the girl of his dreams.
Eric Hoffer Award winner announcement on The US Review of Books
The Parachute Paradox is perhaps the most impressive book I have ever read on the Palestinian-Jewish conflict. A good book to read and to go through gently, piece by piece.
Moors Magazine, The Netherlands
Thrilling, challenging, inspiring, thoughtful. The Parachute Paradox is part romance, part thriller, part political analysis. It is thoroughly redemptive and frustrating at the same time. It embraces the reality of a journey of identity and a path to internal peace. Any interested party in the Arab-Israeli conflict must read this firsthand account. In it, Steve tracks all the harmful pitfalls of stereotypes and gives the reader a taste of the kind of spiritual vision necessary to take us beyond the boxes that entrap us.
Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, New York
A thought-provoking, compelling and beautifully crafted memoir. From the brilliant metaphor in the title to the last page, this book is an inspirational work of art.
Joanna Barakat, Palestinian artist
Sabella writes not only as a novelist but also as a choreographer, dancing with words and images. He infuses this captivating book with exceptional cinematographic energy, artistry, and uniqueness in conveying the scene. In short, these are cinematographic pages par excellence.
Nicoles Youness, Professor of History of Art
A must-read for the Palestinian perspective. Thankfully, this memoir is a journey that ends with an epiphany.
Rod Such, The Palestine Chronicle
"The Parachute Paradox, a new memoirs from Palestine from Palestinian author Steve Sabella, provides a unique insight into the individual pursuit of global citizenship through the author's life story."
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)
The Parachute Paradox is as much a love story as it is a political testimony.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9783949392047 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Emaginity |
| Publication date: | 04/12/2021 |
| Edition description: | 2nd Second Edition. a New Version ed. |
| Pages: | 322 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Eric Hoffer Award winner announcement on The US Review of Books:
"The Parachute Paradox, Steve Sabella, Kerber Verlag - With a clever and intriguing cover, this book eagerly invites the reader to explore its contents. Perhaps the fact that the author is an accomplished artist and photographer explains the volume's elegant appearance. The book's content isn't any less appealing. We learn the story of a Christian boy growing up among Arabs in Israeli-occupied Palestine, drowning in the toxic national and religious ideology that surrounds him. We later discover a young man who's freedom does not exist except as an expression of his art, and as an endless love for the girl of his dreams. We finally encounter a mature, conflicted man pursuing his career in exile and using art as the vehicle of his liberation.
This memoir offers a glimpse into the perpetual Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of an innocent bystander, who struggles to survive and who learns to live free, if only in his mind. Meanwhile, the Palestinian and the Israeli existence continues to be linked like the parachute jumper and his trainer, who descend in a dangerous tandem toward an insecure future."
THE PARACHUTE PARADOX AN ARTIST'S LAW OF RETURN
By Almút Sh. Bruckstein
"Steve Sabella, artist, thinker, writer, film-maker and photographer, is a son of the Old City of Jerusalem. His roots are spread heavenwards, and he signs his books as a citizen of planet earth. We celebrate his latest work, The Parachute Paradox, a mesmerizing life story. A book about home, about Jerusalem, about the effects and after-effects of the occupation, the occupation of Palestine, of the self, of Jerusalem, about the hijacking of tradition, the hijacking of the image, even the image of Jerusalem, and most importantly about what the artist calls the colonization of the artistic imagination.
This meticulously produced book is about exile, not only that of the artist, but even of Jerusalem, the city of prophets who so miserably betrays her promise to act as a secure haven for all its citizens. It is a book about the artist's exiled mother tongue, about alienated speech and failed communications, about exiled dreams, and most disturbingly, about the haunting experience of the protagonist's imagination being locked-in by the politics of separation, by the violation of human rights, in other words: by the conditions of life dictated by the Israeli occupation.
One of the liberating features of The Parachute Paradox is the fact that it starts off with a very simple premise: just as there is no question about rape being unjust, so there is no question that living under occupation cripples life. "I am not pro-Palestinian, I am pro-justice"- these words by the political theorist Norman Finkelstein are fully endorsed by the artist, and they are so naturally presumed by the author that the pros and cons of this question are of no concern to the book.
The question of The Parachute Paradox is, rather, how to break free, how to rescue the artistic imagination and the author's life from the grip of its colonizer. The author Steve Sabella, in a brilliant dramaturgic move, in the end breaks free from the fate of his protagonist, inspired and supported by precious literary and real life collaborators, most importantly his love Francesca, his daughter Cécile, and a handful of his closest artist friends, some of whom honor us with their presence.
...The Parachute Paradox is a book about liberation, freedom and return."