Matt Rees's Blog, page 48
February 24, 2009
Israeli paper finds 'vivid picture of Palestinian life' in THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET
In the liberal Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Carol Novis reviews the third of my Palestinian crime novels THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET. I'm happy that she doesn't view my novel as coming down on one side or the other in the conflict here in the Middle East. I think of my novels as humanist, filtering out the politics that make people see the Palestinians as stereotypes (either of terrorists or victims).
"Rather than implicitly take sides in the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian struggle, [Ha'aretz writes:] Rees, a former Time magazine bureau chief in Jerusalem, has chosen to draw a vivid picture of Palestinian life that will enlighten many who know little of its culture, family structure and society... All in all, the Omar Yussef mystery series attempts to show that as long as there are good men − and Rees evidently believes that there are − there is hope."
"Rather than implicitly take sides in the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian struggle, [Ha'aretz writes:] Rees, a former Time magazine bureau chief in Jerusalem, has chosen to draw a vivid picture of Palestinian life that will enlighten many who know little of its culture, family structure and society... All in all, the Omar Yussef mystery series attempts to show that as long as there are good men − and Rees evidently believes that there are − there is hope."
February 22, 2009
Global Post features my articles on Nablus, the Samaritans from my new novel
The new U.S. website Global Post, which aims to provide Americans with the foreign news that they're missing since their newspapers fired almost all their international correspondents, features a series of stories by me. They're intended as introductions to my new Palestinian crime novel, THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET -- colorful features about life for the Palestinians who appear in the book. The second article tells how I came to know the remnants of the ancient Samaritans, living on a hilltop overlooking Nablus. Both articles include photographs I took of Nablus and links to video about the novel.
