When The Bulbul Stopped Singing: A Diary of Ramallah under Siege

by Raja Shehadeh

'Palestine's greatest prose writer' Observer

'Shehadeh is a great inquiring spirit with a tone that is vivid, ironic, melancholy and wise' Colm Tóibín

Battered by repeated suicide bombs, the Israeli army invaded Palestine in April 2002 and held many of the principal towns, including Ramallah, under siege. A tank stood at the end of Raja Shehadeh's road; there were Israeli soldiers on the rooftops; his mother was sick, and he couldn't cross town to help her.

Shehadeh - winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize and a finalist for the 2023 National Book Awards - kept a diary. This is an account of what it is like to be under the terror, the frustrations, as well as the moments of poignant relief and reflection on the profound crisis gripping both Palestine and Israel.

154 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2024

About the author

Raja Shehadeh (Arabic: رجا شحادة) is a Palestinian lawyer, human rights activist and writer. He is the author of Strangers in the House (2002), described by The Economist as “distinctive and truly impressive”, When the Bulbul Stopped Singing (2003), Palestinian Walks (2007), for which he won the 2008 Orwell Prize, and A Rift in Time (2010). Shehadeh trained as a barrister in London and is a founder of the human rights organization Al-Haq. He blogs regularly for the International Herald Tribune/The New York Times and lives in Ramallah, on the West Bank.

Reviews

[Hannan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in one go sitting at the cafe in foyles (also known as the time a bald man came up and told me I had a cool gangster look). I really liked this diary and it made me think more about how the Palestinians are being shown in the media as like this collective and we forget to think about individual people, which was something the author disliked and mentioned multiple times in the book. I really enjoy memoir style books and enjoyed the way he wrote, he was able to picture what was happening so well.