Raja Shehadeh
رجا شحادة
Born1951 (age 72–73)
Ramallah, Jordan
EducationBirzeit University
American University of Beirut, University of Law
RelativesNajib Nassar (great-great-uncle)

Raja Shehadeh (Arabic: رجا شحادة, born 1951) is a Palestinian lawyer, human rights activist and writer.[1] He co-founded the award-winning Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq in 1979.[1] In 2008, he won the Orwell Prize, a British award for political writing, for his book Palestinian Walks.[2]

Early life

Shehadeh was born into a prominent Palestinian Christian family.[3] His grandfather, Saleem, was a judge in the courts of Mandate Palestine. His great-great-uncle, the journalist Najib Nassar, founded the Haifa-based newspaper Al-Karmil in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, before World War I. His father, Aziz, was one of the first Palestinians to publicly support a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.[1]

His family fled from Jaffa to Ramallah in 1948.[4] In 1951, Shehadeh was born in Ramallah, West Bank, Jordan[4] where he grew up. He attended Birzeit College for two years before studying English literature in the American University of Beirut. After graduating from AUB Raja studied at the College of Law in London.[4] Following his education, Shehadeh returned to Ramallah and went into legal practice with his father.[4]

In 1979, Shehadeh co-founded the human rights organization Al-Haq,[1] which is the Palestinian affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. He has written several books on international law, human rights and the Middle East.[5] Al-Haq was one of the first human rights organizations in the Arab world. It was a co-recipients of the Carter-Menil Human Rights Prize in 1989,[6][7][8] and of the Geuzenpenning in 2009.[9][10]

In addition to his legal work Shehadeh has written a number of books about Palestine through the lens of his life. He tells the story of his early life and his relationship with his father in Strangers in the House. This memoir was described by The Economist as "distinctive and truly impressive".[11] In 2008, he won the Orwell Prize, Britain's pre-eminent award for political writing, for his book Palestinian Walks.[2] In July 2018, his biographical Where the Line is Drawn: Crossing Boundaries in Occupied Palestine was chosen for BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, and was narrated by actor Peter Polycarpou.

In 2016, Shehadeh took part in a project, initiated by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an article for a book on the Israeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War.[12][13] The book was edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was published under the title Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, in June 2017.[14]

London Review of Books editor Adam Shatz cited Shehadeh as one of two people who have provided a formative influence of his understanding of the Middle East conflict, writing that "Anguished and somewhat fragile, he is a man who, in spite of his understandable bitterness, has continued to dream of a future beyond the occupation, a kind of neo-Ottoman federation where Arabs and Jews would live as equals."[15]

In 2022, he was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.[16]

He was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction for We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I.[17]

Bibliography

  • The Third Way. A Journal of Life in the West Bank. Quartet Books Ltd., 1982
  • Strangers in the house. Steerforth Press. 2002.
  • When the Bulbul Stopped Singing (2003)
  • Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape (2007, 2nd edition published as Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape (2008))
  • A Rift In Time: Travels With My Ottoman Uncle (2010)
  • Occupation Diaries (2012)
  • Where the Line is Drawn: Crossing Boundaries in Occupied Palestine (2017)
  • Language of War, Language of Peace (2015)
  • Life Behind Israeli Checkpoints (2017)
  • Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation. Profile Books., 2019
  • We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, Profile Books., 2022

Book reviews

Year Review article Work(s) reviewed
2019 Shehadeh, Raja (7–20 March 2019). "Bearing witness in the West Bank". The New York Review of Books. 66 (4): 33–34. Shulman, David. Freedom and despair : notes from the south Hebron hills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Critical studies and reviews of Shehadeh's work

Strangers in the house

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Aguirre, Abby (12 August 2008). "Roaming freely in a land of restraints". New York Times. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
  2. 1 2 Stephen Brook (25 April 2008). "Hari and James take Orwell prizes". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 April 2008.
  3. ↑ Buchan, James (3 May 2003). "Shattered lives". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 February 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Shehadeh, Raja (21 August 2012). Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine. Steerforth Press. ISBN 9781586422134.
  5. ↑ "New York Times Publishes a Rejection of Yossi Klein Halevi's Plea for Reconciliation". 24 August 2018.
  6. ↑ "Carter-Menil Rights Award For Israeli and Arab Groups". The New York Times. Reuters. 16 November 1989.
  7. ↑ "PALESTINIAN, ISRAELI GROUPS TO SHRE CARTER-MENIL AWARD". Associated Press News. 15 November 1989.
  8. ↑ "Special Prize of the Carter-Menil Human Rights Foundation". The Carter Center. Archived from the original on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
  9. ↑ "About Al Haq". Archived from the original on 2 May 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2006.
  10. ↑ "2009 Al-Haq and B'Tselem". Stichting Geuzenverzet. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
  11. ↑ "Grey is hard to find". The Economist. Vol. 362, no. 8256. 19 January 2002. p. 72.
  12. ↑ Zeveloff, Naomi; The Forward (18 April 2016). "Renowned Authors Learn About Occupation Firsthand in Breaking the Silence Tour". Haaretz.
  13. ↑ Cain, Sian (17 February 2016). "Leading authors to write about visiting Israel and the occupied territories". The Guardian.
  14. ↑ "Kingdom of Olives and Ash Writers Confront the Occupation By Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman". Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  15. ↑ Adam Shatz, 'Writers or Missionaries? A reporter’s journey involves writing with a sense of history and without false consolation,' The Nation July 15, 2014.
  16. ↑ "RSL International Writers". Royal Society of Literature. 3 September 2023. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  17. ↑ "National Book Award finalists announced". Books+Publishing. 5 October 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
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