***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba - which translates to 'disaster' or 'catastrophe' - lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight. Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it. The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.

This book brings together testimonials from people of different nationalities and professions who are 'pro-Palestinian', whether as scholars, film-makers, artists, musicians, activists, or NGO workers. Using what oral historians call the ‘focused life history’, renowned scholar, Rosemary Sayigh, invites her contributors to describe the experiences, events, motives and feelings that led them to support the Palestinian cause. The book is the first of its kind in Palestiniography and includes voices from countries across the world. A chapter is dedicated to each country and contributors are asked to reveal how they ‘discovered’ Palestine - given that Palestine is rarely mentioned in school textbooks or university courses - whether by travel, friendship, study, membership in a political party or book group. They are also asked to detail what specific forms their engagement has taken - ranging scholarly, creative, militant, or charitable - and what their hopes are for the international solidarity movement. Finally, each contributor reflects on if they feel a just and equitable solution can ever be achieved for Palestinians, and if they accept the label ‘pro-Palestinian’ or would rather define their relationship to the Palestinians in some other way. With testimonies from both high profile and grassroots activists, the book is a rich and personal selection that reflects the diversity, dynamism and global nature of the movement for Palestine.

An acclaimed economist and lifelong Palestinian nationalist Yusif Sayigh (1916-2004) came of age at a time of immense political change in the Middle East. Born in al-Bassa, near Acre in northern Palestine, he was witness to the events that led to the loss of Palestine andhis memoir therefore constitutes a vivid social history of the region, as well as a revealing firsthand account of the Palestinian national movement almost from its earliest inception. Family and everyday life, co-villagers, landscapes, pleasures, outings, schooling, and political figures recreate the vanished world of Sayigh's formative years in the Levant. An activist in Palestine, he was taken prisoner of war by the Israelis in 1948. Later, as an economist, he wrote extensively on Arab oil, economic development, and manpower, teaching for many years at the American University of Beirut and taking early retirement in 1974 to work as a consultant for a number of pan-Arab and international organizations. A single chapter on Palestinian politics provides insights into his later activist work and experiences of working as a consultant with the Palestine Liberation Organization to produce an economic plan for an eventual Palestinian state.
This fascinating memoir by a pioneer and major figure of the Palestinian national movement is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Palestinian life during the first half of the twentieth century as well as an account of some of the most pressing political and economic issues to have faced the Arab world for the better part of the twentieth century.

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba - which translates to 'disaster' or 'catastrophe' - lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight. Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it. The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.

This book brings together testimonials from people of different nationalities and professions who are 'pro-Palestinian', whether as scholars, film-makers, artists, musicians, activists, or NGO workers. Using what oral historians call the ‘focused life history’, renowned scholar, Rosemary Sayigh, invites her contributors to describe the experiences, events, motives and feelings that led them to support the Palestinian cause. The book is the first of its kind in Palestiniography and includes voices from countries across the world. A chapter is dedicated to each country and contributors are asked to reveal how they ‘discovered’ Palestine - given that Palestine is rarely mentioned in school textbooks or university courses - whether by travel, friendship, study, membership in a political party or book group. They are also asked to detail what specific forms their engagement has taken - ranging scholarly, creative, militant, or charitable - and what their hopes are for the international solidarity movement. Finally, each contributor reflects on if they feel a just and equitable solution can ever be achieved for Palestinians, and if they accept the label ‘pro-Palestinian’ or would rather define their relationship to the Palestinians in some other way. With testimonies from both high profile and grassroots activists, the book is a rich and personal selection that reflects the diversity, dynamism and global nature of the movement for Palestine.

As the Israel-Palestine conflict rages on, it is more important now than ever to understand the history of the Palestinian people. Rosemary Sayigh's The Palestinians is a classic of radical history. Through extensive interviews with Palestinians in refugee camps, she provides a deeply-moving, grassroots story of how the Palestinians came to be who they are today. In their own voices, Palestinians tell stories of the Nabka and their flight from their homeland. Sayigh's powerful account of Palestinians' economic marginalisation the social and psychological effects of being uprooted and the political oppression which they have faced continues to resonate today. Reissued with an extensive new foreword by Noam Chomsky, which brings the story that Sayigh tells up-to-date in the context of the Hamas victory and the war in Lebanon, this book is both a fascinating historical document and an essential insight into the situation in the contemporary Middle East.

As the Israel-Palestine conflict rages on, it is more important now than ever to understand the history of the Palestinian people. Rosemary Sayigh's The Palestinians is a classic of radical history. Through extensive interviews with Palestinians in refugee camps, she provides a deeply-moving, grassroots story of how the Palestinians came to be who they are today. In their own voices, Palestinians tell stories of the Nabka and their flight from their homeland. Sayigh's powerful account of Palestinians' economic marginalisation the social and psychological effects of being uprooted and the political oppression which they have faced continues to resonate today. Reissued with an extensive new foreword by Noam Chomsky, which brings the story that Sayigh tells up-to-date in the context of the Hamas victory and the war in Lebanon, this book is both a fascinating historical document and an essential insight into the situation in the contemporary Middle East.