Raja Shehadeh & Penny Johnson – Forgotten

Description

Forgotten is a search for hidden or neglected memorials and places in historic Palestine – now Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories – and what they might tell us about the land and the people who live on our small slip of earth between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

From ancient city ruins to the Nabi ‘Ukkasha mosque and tomb, acclaimed writers and researchers Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson ask: what has been memorialised, and what lies unseen, abandoned or erased – and why? Whether standing on a high cliff overlooking Lebanon or at the lowest land-based elevation on earth at the Dead Sea, they explore lost connections in a fragmented land.

In elegiac, elegant prose, Shehadeh and Johnson grapple not only with questions of Israeli resistance to acknowledging the Nakba – the 1948 catastrophe for Palestinians – but also with the complicated history of Palestinian commemoration today.

About the Authors

Raja Shehadeh is Palestine’s leading writer. He is also a lawyer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq. Shehadeh was a National Book Award finalist in 2023 and is the author of several acclaimed books published by Profile, including the Orwell Prize-winning Palestinian Walks. He lives in Ramallah.

Penny Johnson is an academic at Birzeit University in Ramallah and has published articles and edited a number of important books on Palestine.