Me and Jerusalem

This book traces the stages of Hala Sakakini’s life in Jerusalem, from childhood in 1924 up to the Nakba of 1948. Moving deftly between the personal and the public, Hala shares a number of social, cultural, and political moments she lived through with her family during that period, revealing the striking presence of her father, Khalil Sakakini, and the clear impact he had on her self-formation and intellectual growth. The narrative carries us from one memory to another amid small, precise details of places and the atmosphere of life in the city; its family names, theaters, schools, cafés, and seasonal celebration rituals in the 1930s and 1940s, as if the book invites the reader to walk Jerusalem’s streets with Hala and summon the city, smoothly and vividly, in feeling.