Raja Shehadeh - Palestinian Walks. Notes on a Vanishing Landscape

'One way of measuring the quality of your freedom is to take a walk. Raja Shehadeh records how brutalizing the loss of a landscape is, both to the losers and the takers: there are no winners. Palestinian Walks is a stoic account of a particular place, but one which has universal resonance. The judges felt it made landscape into the essence of politics, and political writing into an art.' Jean Seaton, chair of the Orwell Prize committee, 2008

'It is impossible to capture the isolation felt by many Palestinians, but Shehadeh does a tremendous job this may well be one of the most compelling things you'll read' Scotland on Sunday

'He distils his pain and anger into eloquent prose, meticulously counting the ways he loves his land, allowing it to sing in evocations of grass, luminous in sunlight, a sea of poppies, low oregano bushes yielding their scene as he brushes past, scarlet cyclamens growing out of crevices, muted pink rock roses Palestinian Walks is no trite exercise in myth-making or propaganda.' Sunday Tribune

'Shehadeh describes how the destruction of a beloved landscape mirrors the damage to Palestinian identity lyrical nature-writing with understated political passion' Guardian

'Intensely political while avoiding the excesses of pure polemic, Shehadeh's account continually grapples with misconceptions and misinformation There's such an eccentricity to his approach, commenting on dinosaur footprints in the rock one moment, challenging Israeli law the next it's a remarkable way of going about things, delivering what many activists neglect to mention: the odd, slightly absurd details that really touch people; things that appear off-camera, away from news reports things that seem real' Independent on Sunday

'Palestinian Walks provides a rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.' Jimmy Carter

'Towards any proper understanding of history there are many small paths. This constantly surprising book modestly describes walking along certain paths which have touched the lived lives of two millennia. I strongly suggest you walk with him.' John Berger

'This is a beautiful book and a sad one.' Anthony Lewis

'Shehadeh writes beautifully, his language infused with a lyrical, melancholic sense of loss. An important record of a land marked by conflict that is changing every day' Sunday Telegraph

'Shehadeh is a man of real principle, one who clearly believes he does the most good by enduring with dignity in the land of his birth Readers more accustomed to greyish newspaper generalities about the 'situation' would do well to reckon with the painful particulars of Shehadeh's account, which is at once gentle and angry, resolute and realistic.' The Nation

RAJA SHEHADEH is the author of the highly praised memoir Strangers in the House, and the enormously acclaimed When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, which was made into a stage play. He is a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah. He is a founder of the pioneering, non-partisan human rights organisation Al-Haq, an affiliate of the international Commission of Jurists, and the author of several books about international law, human rights and the Middle East. Palestinian Walks won the Orwell Prize in 2008.