Unlike most other Palestinian cities, Ramallah is a relatively new town, a de facto capital of the West Bank allowed to thrive after the Oslo Peace Accords, but just as quickly hemmed in and suffocated by the Occupation as the Accords have failed. Perched along the top of a mountainous ridge, it plays host to many contradictions: traditional Palestinian architecture jostling against aspirational developments and cultural initiatives, a thriving nightlife in one district, with much more conservative, religious attitudes in the next. Most striking however - as these stories show - is the quiet dignity, resilience and humour of its people; citizens who take their lives into their hands every time they travel from one place to the next, who continue to live through countless sieges, and yet still find the time, and resourcefulness, to create. Translated by Basma Ghalayini, Alexander Hong, Thoraya El-Rayyes, Mohammed Ghalaieny, Raph Cormack, Adam Talib, Yasmine Seale, Andrew Leber, Emre Bennett & Raph Cohen.

Set in Palestine, before the creation of the state of Israel, this lyrical and deftly written novel spans three generations living in the small village of Hadiya. Reaching back into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the immense history of this period is brought into focus by the very human stories of Hajj Mahmoud, his son Khaled, and grandson Naji. As the cruel hand of history hovers above them, their destinies are shaped by outside forces - first the crumbling Ottoman Empire, then the British Mandate, and finally the Nakba. Nasrallah's elegant and epic tale is one of both suffering and survival, heart-break and hope.

In eighteenth-century Palestine, on the shores of Galilee's Lake Tiberias, visionary political and military leader Daher al-Umar al-Zaydani undertakes a journey toward the greatest aim anyone could hope to achieve in his day: the establishment of an autonomous Arab state. To do so he must challenge the rule of the greatest power in the world at the time-the Ottoman Empire-while translating the ideals of human dignity, justice, and religious tolerance into concrete daily realities.
In this compelling story of love and loss, victory and defeat, loyalty and betrayal, award-winning poet and novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah, author of the Arabic Booker shortlisted Time of White Horses, once again brings Palestinian history alive with a set of characters and events both real and imagined to capture the essence of a rich and dramatic epoch in the turbulent annals of a land that has been fought over for millennia.

Text in Arabic. A group of disparate individuals, two of whom are Palestinian adolescents who have lost their legs in Israeli bomb strikes, is preparing to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. They have nothing and everything in common. Hailing from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and America, the characters test the limits of their physical and emotional strengths to prove to themselves that they can transcend their strife-ridden histories and accomplish the unexpected. Nasrallahs work is a page-turning, nail-biting tale of adventure, as well as an ode to the resilience of the human spirit.

A Palestinian poet, Ibrahim Nasrallah is among the foremost poets of his generation. In this collection, Nasrallah describes the suffering of the Palestinians not through a personal lens, but through a universal context. He observes life with a natural human tendency toward a love that can heal, transcend, and transform the pain and sorrow of human experience.

"Taste"

There's the dewy taste of seas and clouds in the dust, the taste of the expanse and the rain, of plains, mountains, humans, of feminity, love, and intrepid oranges, of childhood and saffron, of living in my mother's heart, of travel, and of your soul and mine.But my beloved trees steal toward the sourceto taste it in solitude, before any of us

Ibrahim Nasrallah was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1954, and raised in a refugee camp. After working as a teacher and a journalist, he became vice president of Darat Al-Funoun, Jordan's most prominent art and cultural center. He has written thirteen poetry collections and eleven novels, as well as works of literary criticism. He is also a painter and a photographer.

Omnia Amin was born in Cairo, Egypt. She is an author, translator, and professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Rick London lives and works in San Francisco. His most recent publication is the poetry collection The Materialist (Doorjamb Press, 2008).

"The poet Ibrahim Nasrallah has absorbed both the 'bloody sorrow' of humanity and 'the steady radiance / at the heart of the world, ' that bi-level core of experience which cannot be separated from the sociopolitical. His poems manifest a bountiful and beautiful poetics, and they run a fever. They get under your skin. This is poetry to be read and reread for how it feels"--Marvin Bell"A tragicomic quotidian essence pervades these poems, and palpable echoes of Zbigniew Herbert's words are easily heard. Nasrallah's poems are a welcome translation. They expand and shape our vision of Palestinian poetry's rightful place in world literature."--Fady Joudah

"It is to be hoped that this little volume will start a trend, and that Nasrallah will sooner than later acquire a status in the Anglosphere commensurate with his status in the Arab world...until each of his 10 collections of verse have been translated--preferably bilingually--our view of this humane modernist will remain severely restricted. None of this detracts from the debt we owe Curbstone for making this introduction to Nasrallah available to the Anglophone reader. This plucky little press has set a standard that is now up to major publishing houses to emulate."--The Electronic Intifada

"A people in constant conflict, Rain Inside brings a Palestinian poet's work to the world for English speakers to embrace for the first time...Simple and straightforward with the emotions set forth, Nasrallah inspires the reader with the resilience of the Palestinian spirit and the universal essence in all of us. Rain Inside is a top pick for world poetry collections."-Midwest Book Review, Wisconsin Bookwatch