Mahmoud Shukair

Mahmoud Shukair is a Palestinian writer. He was born in Jabal al Mukabbir in Jerusalem during the British Mandate and studied philosophy and sociology at Damascus University in Syria. He was jailed by the Israeli authorities, and was deported to Lebanon in 1975. After living for 18 years in Beirut, Amman and Prague, he returned to Jerusalem in 1993. He worked for years in teaching and journalism, and served as editor-in-chief of the cultural magazines Al-Talia’a (The Vanguard), Dafatir Thaqafiya (Cultural Pamphlets). He also edited the cultural issues of the journal Sawt al-Watan (Sound of the Homeland). Shukair also occupied positions in the Jordanian Writers’ Union, the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists, the Palestinian People Party, and the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.

His stories have been translated into numerous languages. His 80 books include nine short story collections and 13 books for children. He has also written for television, theatre, and print and online media. In 2011, he was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Freedom of Expression. His 2016 novel Praise for the Women of the Family was nominated for the International Award of Arabic Fiction.

Short stories

• Bread of others. 1975
• The Palestinian boy. 1977
• Portrait of Shakira. 2003
• Condoleezza, the daughter of my aunt. 2004
• Windows for utterance and longing. 2023

Very short stories

• Rites for a miserable woman. 1986
• Silence of windows. 1991
• Muroor Khatif. 2002
• Small probabilities. 2006
• Jerusalem stands alone. 2010
• The city of losses and desire 2011
• The ceilings of desire. 2017
• The milk of duha. 2021

Novels

• The family horse. 2013
• Praise for the women of the family. 2015
  Shadows of the family. 2019

Biographies

• Another shadow of the city. 1998
• Jerusalem said to Us. 2009
• Mirrors of absence. 2007

Journeys

• Charming cities and a frivolous wind. 2004
• Those faraway cities. 2020

Autobiographies

• Those places. 2020
• Those times. 2022

Children books

    Novels

• Me and Jomanah. 2000
• A faraway planet for my sister the queen. 2007
• The talk of Mariam. 2013
• Dreams of the thin boy. 2010
• Waiting for the snow. 2016
• I, my friend, and the donkey. 2016
• The doves of the ceiling. 2018
• The ringing of names. 2023

    Stories

• The checkpoint. 1986
• The soldier and the doll. 1986
• The donkey’s song. 1988
• The rooster’s job. 1999
• Birds at the window. 2001
• The boy who broke the glass. 2001
• A hard experience. 2001
• The small king. 2004
• Alaa’ in the small house. 2004
• The tree said to us. 2004
• The donkey’s journey and other stories. 2011
• A girl and three boys in the city of ancestors. 2012
• Mariam, Kanaa’n and other stories. 2014
• The bird of Sanaa’. 2014
• Jomanah Alrommanah and other stories. 2016
• Mahdy’s song and other stories. 2016
• Ageebah. 2018
• Mahdy, Jomanah and the rain. 2018
• The malty color butterfly. 2018
• Roses for aunt Mariam. 2018
• The call of dawn. 2018
• The autumn birds. 2018
• In the mosque and the church. 2018
• Nahar Laila. 2019
• The island of talk. 2019
• Adventures of Mahdy and Jomanah. 2020
• Laqlaq. 2021
• The stubborn mother. 2023

Biographies

• Jerusalem my first city. 2014
• Ramallah which is there. 2016
• Fadwa Tuoqan, the marvelous journey. 2018
• A house of colors. 2022
• Ghassan Kanafani the eternal. 2022

HEMINGWAY IN JERUSALEM
Mahmoud Shukair

I began reading Ernest Hemingway when I was twenty-two and wished I’d discovered him earlier.

From the very first stories and novels I read I sensed that here was a writer who could captivate his reader. From the beginning I was amazed by his simple, inimitable prose style, flowing sentences that in most instances began with a verb, and his cunning way of disguising himself in the text, presenting himself to the reader as objective and impartial. This way of writing, I believe, made a deep impression on me. That was in the early 1960s at a time when Jerusalem celebrated culture and writers had a role in the city, in complete contrast to today.

I and a group of young men began writing for the Jerusalem-based magazine New Horizon [al-Ufq al-Jadeed] that first emerged in 1961. The appearance of the magazine at this time, I believe, played a major role in bringing us into the arena of creative writing, in refining our talents, and in focusing our attention on international literature. Fortunately, there was a fairly lively translation movement in Cairo and Beirut at the time and there were bookshops in Jerusalem that stocked books from the publishing houses in those two cities including, of course, translations of the most important international authors. Critical essays and book reviews published in New Horizon, along with the Lebanese al-adaab magazine, played an important role in acquainting us with the books we should read. Thus I came to know the work of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Erskine Caldwell, Colin Wilson and others.

I would head joyfully for the bookshops on Salah al-Din Street and Al-Zahra Street to see what new books had arrived. I was always buying books: poetry collections, volumes of stories, novels, as were my writer friends, who later became known as the ‘New Horizon generation’. We would buy the books from Cairo and Beirut, read and discuss them, and sometimes even venture to write something about them. During these years, as an aspiring writer only just finding his feet, I began to read in English. I would go to the American Information Centre, situated on one of the side streets off Sharia Salah al-Din, and borrow a book in Arabic and English. I became so drawn to both Hemingway and Steinbeck that I undertook to translate their stories from English into Arabic. My translations of Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” and Steinbeck’s “The Snake” were published in New Horizon.

Hemingway made a huge impression on us, not only in the realm of literature but also in our daily lives. We began to frequent coffee shops in such a manner that heads would be turned, imitating Hemingway who spent all his time in cafés in the cities he visited. (When I was in Madrid in 1988, I just had to visit the café where Hemingway used to sit and went there with one of my Spanish friends. We sat together, remembering Hemingway and his mad love of bull-fighting and friendships with the sport’s heroes).

We had our favorite coffee shops in Salah al-Din Street and Al-Zahra Street, as well as in the old city. We loved sitting in coffee shops and it supplied us with new material for our stories. Never would we walk those city streets without books under our arms as evidence that we were intellectuals soon to make our mark on the world of literature.

Hemingway’s novels and short stories broadened my horizons and enriched my soul in no small way. As I walked the streets, climbed the steps of buildings, rode buses, and studied the people, the buildings and everything else around me I felt I was in the world of a novel. I pictured myself as a literary hero just stepped out of a book, walking the streets and sitting in cafés with characters from Hemingway’s novels and short stories. They appeared pleasant and friendly as they strove, prescribed by destiny, for a better life, though their efforts almost always ended in failure.

When I read A Farewell to Arms (1929) I was thrilled by Hemingway’s deployment of hot weather in the love story that explodes between the wounded soldier and nurse looking after him in hospital. Oh, how the scenes set in the pouring rain delighted me! When I read Hemingway’s short stories the unpretentious elegance of their titles caught my attention, for example A clean well-lighted place (1933), Old man at the bridge (1938) and so on. I was also attracted to his turn of phrase and flowing prose that used delicate allusions to captivate the reader and encourage him to play an active role in reshaping the work of art. Hemingway does not tell the reader everything. Rather, as critics, including the famous American Carlos Baker, have noted, he touches only the tip of the iceberg and leaves the rest buried deep below the ocean’s surface. By leaving his stories open to interpretation in this way Hemingway lends his stories a lasting and universal significance.

In the early 1960s I was searching for answers to the many questions to do with existence, society, life and mankind that had dogged me for years. I began to incline towards the Left as I learned more and more about it in Hemingway’s writings. I loved his novel For Whom the Bells Toll (1940) which portrays his
sympathy for the Spanish people in their fight against fascism. Hemingway’s predilection for secularism and support of socialism and its struggle against fascism was, for me, good reason to pursue my interest in this American philanthropist’s work. This was reinforced when I read The Old Man and The Sea where I saw the struggle of the old man Stucco, the novel’s hero, with the hungry sharks in the rough sea as a symbol for the struggle against evils powers wherever they are. The way Stucco’s fishing expedition ends in no way diminished the value of the novel and its underlying themes and messages. My writer friends and I worked hard at the time to squeeze more meaning out of this great humanist novel and it was no surprise that we reached the conclusion that the novel – in its portrayal of Stucco’s long and exhausting fishing trip where his only reward is the carcass of a giant fish which he throws on to the shore as he walks off to get some well-deserved rest – ultimately represents the common struggle of mankind. We saw the carcass as a metaphor for all that is left behind from man’s journey through life.

That was in the first half of the 1960s. Then came the June war of 1967 and the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian people thus suffered a Nakba (setback) similar to that of 1948; and the occupation had a hugely damaging effect on intellectual activity in Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Territories. The writing community was thrown into disarray, some of its members were arrested, others were forced into exile by the Israeli settlement, while the rest fell silent and stopped writing. New Horizon ceased to exist and daily newspapers disappeared until a year into the occupation. The bookshops we used to buy books from were no longer able to import new books because of the occupation policy that imposed a blockade on people. The result was that the cultural scene dwindled and entered a period of stagnation that lasted several years.

I could not continue with Hemingway until I was myself exiled from the homeland (1975). The occupation authorities exiled me to
Lebanon; there, in Beirut, and afterwards in Amman, I was once again able to read Hemingway. The last book I read was A Moveable Feast (1964), which might be regarded as a personal journey of sorts or short story, though not in the strict meaning of the word. I observed that Hemingway was still true to his delicate allusion and inimitable simple prose style, never affected or laborious. I also observed Hemingway’s tendency to run down people he had known in his work, perhaps from hatred or jealousy, perhaps because of his own bad mood and egotism, which were characteristics I had not recognized in my favorite writer during the early years when I was naïve and eagerly seeking perfection!

When I read Paul Johnson’s book “The Intellectuals” I discovered things about Hemingway I hadn’t known before, for example, his deep loathing of his mother, his authoritarian approach to his four wives, his tendency to exaggerate and lie, his jealousy of other writers’ successes and rancor towards them (with the
exception of the poet Ezra Pound who remained in Hemingway’s affection because of the latter’s high morality and concern for other writers).

Perhaps the facts are true, perhaps some are true and others false. This doesn’t interest me, particularly as that is all in the past! What interests me is that Hemingway’s novels and short stories were, and still are, able to enrich human existence with noble values and hidden pleasure. This is why Hemingway has had a positive influence on both my soul and my writing. I always remember him with affection and respect. I recognize him as my superior and hold him in high estimation.

*

How Do We Enter the World of Children
Mahmoud Shukair

Literature for children gains its importance and reliability by providing the children’s knowledge, psychological, emotional needs, beauty and recreation needs, and by preventing them from getting drifted with the pictures culture which is carried to them, by the modern media sources, that threatens read material and succeeds in dangerously pulling children away from it.

Hence, and after reviewing a number of poems and stories written for children in Palestine and other Arab countries, it was evident that there was concurrence of the tendency to discipline and guide children on account of other tendencies. But, actually that tendency is addressed intensively in a number of texts where advice and guidance becomes evident while they do not comply with the standards and terms of literature and its beauty, and reveals that adults have falsely interpreted that children are weak creatures who lack the support of others and need it in everything. This misinterpretation has gone to its extreme, which created a case of underestimation of the smartness of children and in taking the risk in providing different literature products, without proper review of children’s stance on that matter or the extent of the child’s acceptance of it and without taking into consideration their emotional and psychological needs, or providing the children with the entertainment of reading. This matter is lacked among children’s writers, who write their thoughts and ideas that do not comply with children’s awareness, and provide them with their own feelings and emotions that do not correspond with the children’s needs and feelings, this is due to the great gap of age, experience, culture and awareness.

Children have capabilities for interpreting matters in their own way, which can be amazing for adults sometimes. And a proof of that is the following examples: a while ago I was watching a number of short movies for different producers from around the world in memory of the September Eleven attacks on New York, one of the movies was about Afghanistan, where a teacher asked the students who are under the age of five: “who demolished the World Trade Towers in New York? And one of the children answered: “God demolished the two towers.” And another student commented on the matter saying: “But God does not have planes.” And the first child assured him by saying: “God demolished the two towers and he is the one that can kill people and create them again.”

Another child said: “God is not crazy to kill people and then recreate them again.”

I also noticed that matter in texts amazingly written by children and were gathered by Nanette Newman in a book called “Small Talk”, where I quote the following:-

Alice (5 years) wrote: “To get married you have to shave your legs I think.”
Norman (6 years) wrote: “I wouldn’t fall in love because girls are all spotty and they whisper.”
Nick (6 years) wrote: “my dad was going to marry my mum but he forgot”
Anna (5 years) wrote: “I am helping my Mummy choose my next Daddy.”
Andrea (6 years) wrote: “once you’ve had a baby you can’t put it back.”
And Tina (6 years) wrote: “A new-born baby can’t talk it just thinks all day.”

And to avoid the trend of guidance and direct disciplining of children, it may be appropriate to mention the story of “Pippi Longstocking” for the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, to show the results of direct preaching and disciplining and concurrence of the child’s imagination, and limiting the child’s curiosity, and by creating bonds that tie the child as a claim of protection and proper disciplining.

And in the amazing story the writer avoids discipline and guidance and allows the story hero to move freely and un-orderly, and encourages her to break the rules and norms, and to carry out new adventures and to commit small violations, without any interference or comments not even in an indirect way, but by using a great smart method where Pippi the child who has no father or mother, which the writer prefers since there is no one to force her or order her to go to sleep during the evening, especially when she is in the peak of her activity and joy, for she always does whatever she wants, such as hiding the eggs to prepare omelets for her friends, when an egg breaks on her head and she does not mind, but actually says that she always herd that egg yolks are good for the hair. And when she eats, she lies down on the table and puts the food on the chair, where there is no one to order her to sit properly. And when “Pippi” sleeps, she puts her feet on the pillow and her head under the covers. She prefers to sleep like that, and there is no one to tell her not to do so, and when “Pippi” set the kitchen table nicely she drank the chocolate and turned the cup over her head like a hat, but it was not totally empty and the remainder leaked on her head and face. Afterwards, she and her two friends played around jumping in the kitchen over the things, without touching the ground, and in the end, her friends had to leave her house and her friend said sadly, “it is sad that we have to go home eventually”.

This story that encourages against the norms is a fulfillment of children’s will to challenge, fidget and mess around, and continues the repetition of one single theme which assures that the child should be self- dependent. And this is a disciplinary value that would be hard to give to the child unless “Addressed by facing reality, by breaking its bonds, and passing the limits and rebuilding the relation among its elements or reusing its tools. And that is not granted unless the imagination is set free, which exceeds the reality and its stiffness”, as stated by one of the Arab critics.

Maybe my experience in writing for children can express and explain my interpretation of the method of entering the world of children, while it can also explain some characteristics of writing that emerge from the nature of the life of the Palestinian people. So, my interest was all poured on national distress while writing short stories and plays for children. I was interested in attracting the children to loving their country, to creating a bond with the land and refusing the authority of the occupying enemy over our land and country. I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada against the occupation and the harm caused to the Palestinian children, so I wrote stories that observe the children’s feelings when they see occupation soldiers that oppress the peaceful demonstrations or when they inflict curfews on civilians. I wrote stories about real children who were killed by occupation forces. I wrote these stories trying to avoid direct addressal in that field. Such as the story of “The Soldier and the Doll” which I adopted through what had really happened with to my young daughter on the borders when she was returning with her mother from Jordan, and when the Israeli soldier tore her plastic doll, claiming that he is afraid it might contain explosive material. Of course, the row material of that incident was not sufficient to create a story, so I modified it in a way that made it into a story.

Later on, I wrote a story for youth, that addressed the will to coexist and the concurrence of peace and justice, and the trial of getting to know and understand others, in addition to addressing the social retardation especially when it concerns women and girls, as well as the traditional roles that the school, family and other social structures play. This can push our youth to the wrong track by escaping from their families as a reaction to the negative treatment they have been receiving. I also wrote a novel for youth that contains a lot of fantasy, imagination and fiction. Where I discussed the concept of coexistence with others, which is the idea that is hindered by the occupation. The novel emerges from an imaginary idea to resolve the conflict and ends in the necessity of abolishing weapons from the lives of humans and looking forward to freedom, love, stability and peace. And through that vision, we should consider the multiplicity the Palestinian people have, since the story figures are Moslems and Christians that live an utter case of harmony together.

Therefore, in my stories, I paid attention to the social aspect of the children’s lives. Where there are children that live with poor families. And how to deal with the issue of poverty? For example, some books tend to use negative resolutions that bring sadness and sorrow to the hearts of children. But what is needed is defiantly not to make children sad nor to give them burdens that are heavier than what they can handle.

Therefore, we can approach this issue carefully, which makes the child understands the parents’ conditions, and would not insist on the fulfillment of his requests, I have applied that in some stories where the children gain a new experience and awareness, without going through unnecessary complications.

I also wrote stories that make children love the nature surrounding them and would make them enjoy its aspects, such as rain, clouds, trees and mountains.

Through which we can remember the famous Colombian writer, Garcia Marquez’s description of the relation between the village people and town people, saying that when the town people speak about the village they’d say: “It is that strange place where alive chicken wonder around in!” (That is due to the fact that they have only seen chicken fried in restaurant windows.). I also wrote disciplinary stories that teach the children some proper behaviors, as well as plays for youth around democracy within the family, and I wrote another play about the importance of maintaining a clean environment.

And a play about the fear that the Palestinian children feel, that is caused by the occupation and soldiers, and the fact that children should study, and play and delay their participation in the resistance of the occupation until they are adults. I also wrote a story called “The Young King” where I emphasized on the importance of having mercy and understanding others, and avoiding the use of violence for problem resolution.

The heroes of my story are children and normal human beings, and in my stories, I emphasize on the role of the girls exactly as I do with the role of the boy, and the role of the women just like the role of the man. I also use the method of humanizing animals and birds and use them as leading role players in my stories. Hence, I use the aid of the old Arab tradition that is mentioned in the book of “Kalila wa’Dimna” which are animals who tell stories of great value that guides people to the best way of treating each other and to a better understanding of life.

As for the donkey, it has a special place in my stories, and I wrote many stories where the donkey played the leading role. At the same time in my stories, I have defended children’s rights to play.

And I wrote a story using the traditional story figure “Hasan Al-Shater” who reads out of his book and turns mountains into gold. Meaning that his reading out of the book makes his orders fulfilled. A child called “Maher” borrows the book from Hasan and turns the men and women of the neighborhood into kings and queens for a whole day, so that he and his friends the children would have the chance to play without the interference of their parents. All this was written in a sarcastic method through which reading entertainment is fulfilled, which is the most important term of writing for children.

I have also published five books that deal with specific issues and educational purposes. One of them was a book made for those with special needs, taking into consideration not displaying them as strange subjects, nonetheless, we should treat them the same way we treat a normal figure that does normal things, at the same time, taking notice of the existence of barriers in the society that hinder the retard from trying to live a normal successful life, where most of those retarded people suffer from discrimination in the field of work, education and even in public transportation and other fields of the daily life. And another book that sheds the light on the nature of child treatment. The hero of the book is a child that suffers from domestic violence and is also suffers from violence at school and in the society, which makes his behavior violent with other children his age. And another book about dropping out school and working in early ages.

In a lot of my stories, I tend to insert sarcasm and humor to entertain children during reading, and I think that that sort of writing takes a special effort. And I tend to pour some interest on the aspect of fiction for its importance in enriching the child’s world and enhancing his awareness. I also use formal language that is simple and complies with the knowledge of children and their ability to understand.

In spite of all that, I know that the world of children is not easy, and entering it needs a lot of knowledge and experience both in life and literature. And I admit that a number of my stories that I have published in the past years, tend to focus on my personal points of view, without it being convincing or interesting for children. And when I read some pages out of the book “Harry Potter” for the writer J.K. Rowling, or watch some scenes of the movie, I do not enjoy watching it and I do not think of writing in such a method that is full of magic, adventure and wonder, since I believe that that is not what the child in my country nor in the world needs, and in spite of that, millions of copies have been sold of that book, which undoubtedly interesting children around the world, and that itself pauses a number of new questions about: how do we enter the world of children? And what do we write for them?

 *

I, My Mother and Faith
Mahmoud Shukair

My mother’s interpretation of faith does not differ from my interpretation in certain ways, and those who don’t know the connection between her ideas and Iben Rushd’s, will see that her ideas are an extension to the concepts of this Moslem philosopher who lived in the Andalusia during the twelfth century, this philosopher had had a great impact on European philosophy, since his philosophy represented the base of which the modern European rationality was initiated.

My mother does not know anything about Iben Rushd, since she is illiterate. She was born in the beginning of the last century, and her father was not convinced in enrolling girls in schools at that time, and that was due to the conservativeness that effected a lot of women, and since schools were limitedly and only found in cities, in addition to the retardation that was the main aspect of the Ottoman Nation that ruled our country for four centuries.

My mother does not know anything about the role that Iben Rushd played in the history of philosophy, when he engulfed himself in studying Aristotle, and developed the materialistic aspect of his philosophy, which enabled the European philosophy to free itself to some extent of ideal philosophy which was spread by Saint Tomah Aquinas. As for Islamic philosophy, Iben Rushd fought the concepts that were promoted by Abu Hammed Al-Ghazali in his book “The Incoherence of the Philosophers”, so Iben Rushd replied in a Book “The incoherence of Incoherence” where he disproved all the excuses that were against philosophy, and all his interpretations that stress the importance of banish ordinary people from philosophy, so that it will not effect their minds and religious beliefs.

My mother does not know that Iben Rushd suffered from the impact of the vengeful people on the Caliph Abu Yousef Al-Mansour who raged against Iben Rushd and accused him of infidelity and burned his books in the city of Cordoba before a crowd of people. While thirty-six years ago, my mother burned a good number of my books, but she did not do that to copy the Caliph, but did it for other intensions.

My mother develops her thoughts by her senses and experiences in the daily life she faces. In the same time, she believes in metaphysics and she has solid faith that her prayer, fasting and constant worship of the lord will assure her winning heaven in her life after death. And that she will live there and prosper without any interference or worries. This faith, gives her a sense of assurance, though it only forms a limited part of her reservations, as for the bigger part, it is occupied with the burdens of life, which are too many.

She constantly gives more proofs that her faith and believes are somewhat modern. Since she does not employ the rage of nature in assuring some ideological assumptions, like the fanatics, for instance, when the tsunami disaster hit, and more than one hundred fifty thousand persons died. The fanatics started explaining and interpreting this phenomenon as the anger and rage of God on humans who commit sins and debauchery. My mother disagreed with that, instead, she prayed for mercy on the souls of those who died, which were mostly Moslems, Christians, Buddhists and others, those who lives were taken due to a natural phenomenon that had nothing to do with believes, religions and sins of humans.

And since my mother develops her knowledge from her experience and sense, she only knows a little about the China Wall for example, and the reasons for building it, and knows a little about the Berlin Wall and the causes of its destruction, but she definitely knows one Wall, that worries her every time she remembers that half of her relatives live outside that Wall and the other half live within it. It is the Wall that was built by the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, to confiscate more Palestinian lands and to prevent the Palestinians form creating a geographically connected nation that peacefully neighbors the Israeli State. And in spite of that, she disagrees with murder of innocent people anywhere on earth, and constantly prays for the protection of humans from evil and wars.
My mother does not hate books, and when she burned a lot of books from my library, she did so as an intention to protect me, when some men from the Israeli Security Forces invaded our house one night. She noticed that their attention was focused on my library when they took some books and publications. She thought that what they took was dangerous, and was assured of that when I was detained that night. Her fears increased and thought that there could be other books that can be hidden in my library, which the forces did not pay attention to, which could be quite dangerous, thinking that maybe they will come back to search for them. With the aid of my young sister, she set a fire in the house’s yard, and my sister read the titles of books for her, every title she did not like or thought it can put me in danger was thrown in the fire.

When she was assured that she did a lot, she questioned my sister’s loyalty, and therefore depended on her personal intuition. She started going through the books herself, checking their different covers; she was extremely worried when she saw a number of books that had a picture of men with beards on them, one of the men had a thick beard and sharp eyes, she realized that this person would not be liked by the Israeli Security Forces, and therefore was not hesitant to burn the books that had his picture on their covers, And did the same with three other bearded men until the deed was accomplished.

Though what she did; totally differed from what the Caliph did with Iben Rushd’s books. He was afraid of the power of faith that books engrave in the minds and the hearts of humans. Therefore, I excuse my mother for what she did with my books, since I am assured that her faith is not against books.

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My First City .. My Last City
Mahmoud Shukair

1
It’s the first city that I ever saw.

I used to wake up to the train sirens in the station that’s not too far from my village, where the village inhabitance used to shop in its markets for their basic necessities. They would head to the market early in the morning to sell the products of their livestock, such as milk and yogurt. The women would go to sell country chicken and eggs. (A few used to go to the city Hammam to bathe, and would be mocked by the other women and men, considering that an unnecessary luxury. While narrow-minded persons in our village saw that it was an odd thing, and said: a woman should bathe in her house, they also spread rumors that some women claim that there were attempts of city men spying on bathing women, some whispered about one of our villagers who used to wait for the women that come back from the hammam heading home, and would boldly give them compliments. Lusting for a soft body that just bathed in hot water, soap and steam). Later on, a part of the villagers started relying on agriculture, and Alhisbeh market(1) that’s facing Herod’s Gate(2), which was later on moved to the Suwaneh downhill road (3) the main place for them where they would sell their vegetables. They would go back to the village carrying their necessities form the city, their children used to await the return of their relatives, in order to get sweets, fruits and foods brought from the city.
My father would take me with him after a lot of begging, and I would be glad as soon as we’d start preparing for the trip on foot. Since going to the city in the mid-forties of the past century was a major event that does not occur every day. And that was due to the rare transportation means.

We would go up the peak of the mountain so as to go to the city.
We would pass the road on which the castle of the High Representative sits, that was built years after the incursion of the British forces to the country. I used to be dazzled by the calmness of the castle; I never saw children playing, or dogs barking. We would walk a dirt road and enter the area of the Baqa’a (4) and Hebron Road (5) and pass Juret Al Enab(6) and the Sultan’s pool(7) approaching Jaffa Gate(8), where the Hung Coffee shop stands, (it was demolished by the Israelis, and therefore it no longer exists). My father would go upstairs and I would follow jumping up the steps of the coffee shop building that overlooks Jaffa Gate, he would sit on the porch with the other men. I was amazed by the site of the cars, which gave the city an unforgettable taste.
While entering the old town, the number of the shops used to dazzle me and I would not stop staring around in every direction, depending on my father who was gripping my hand so I would not get lost in the market.
That is my first city and its destiny was vague.

2

And here I am reminiscing:

When I was arrested the first time, in the summer of 1969, where the sergeant of the investigation bureau that came to arrest me approached me. I was tired of being forced to stand before of the investigation desk for hours. He asked me to follow him as it was early in the morning, dusk time. He was tall and slender and had a sense of innocence in his face, which did not qualify him for such a vicious job. Especially when I realized that he was staring at me carefully, while walking side by side to the Russian Compound prison close by. I could not make out his feelings towards me, was he watching me in fear of my escape, where he would be responsible, or that I was too slimmer than him, where he felt pity for me for what I have to face later on by the prison officers and investigators! Or maybe he was not convinced that a slim guy like me could be a threat to the security of Israel to the extent that he had to spend that time away from his wife and kids in order to arrest me! I don’t really know.

Though I walked by him hearing only the sound of our footsteps on the pavement of the road heading from the investigation office to the outer court of the Russian compound prison, which is on the outskirts of eastern Jerusalem.

3

When I met Tmima in that office close to Jaffa road in west Jerusalem, I told her what I went through in the prison.
Tmima felt sorry for what happened, I told her that the best time was in the military prison of Sarfand, beginning Friday afternoon until Saturday evening, where the investigators go back to spend Friday night among their wives and children. And I would feel a relief from worry, My prison mate in the nearby cell and I would start singing until we fall sleepy so I’d sleep on the floor in the narrow cell that has no mattress, and I would only wake up in the morning to the sound of the soldier that passes me the breakfast plate form under the cell door. The breakfast consisted of a piece of bread, a few olives and a piece of cheese. Tmima would feel ashamed from what happens in the Israeli prisons of arbitrary behavior and torture, for she had other believes and thoughts.

I met her in the Israeli Law office of Felicia Langer, which is situated on the beginning of Jaffa Road, she used to announce her disapproval against the occupation, therefore, I admired her while she was working for the office on her political believes (she and her husband were both members in a leftist party called Ma’akaf or Struggle) she was wither twenty six or twenty seven, had long soft blond hair flowing over her shoulders, she was moderately tall and slender, but not too slim, she would wear a pair of pants which she tucked and folded up to her knees during work, and a shirt that would unintentionally unbutton around her waist, so in her simplicity she would look gorgeous. I invited her once to a restaurant in Jerusalem so as to escape from the pressure of daily work, I suggested that she brings along her husband. We headed to her house, that was not too far from Felicia Langer’s office, there we found him resting, then we headed together in his car to the restaurant in West Jerusalem where we spent a nice evening. We discussed some politics where we agreed on a few matters and disagreed on other. And we parted hoping to meet again.

4

And here I am remembering

It rained a lot during that year when I was arrested the second time in the spring of 1974, I would leave my house in the morning and walk in the rain, I’d wait for the bus that leave for the city center, I would sit in the “Sha’ab coffee shop and drink tea and wait for the rain to stop, I would look at the city wall facing the coffee shop, an Israeli soldiers car would pass every now and then dashing through the watery road and I would feel sad, then I would stare again on the wall that is still wet under rain, I realized that the wall is lonely in spite of all that surrounds it of movement and noise, and that its no more capable of protecting the city from the incursion of the plane era. It looks like its been suffering from major humiliation, since it became just an ancient historical site, left for watching. The grieve would increase in my heart, and remember the songs of childhood while we are playing under the rain in the court of our western well; rain and prosper… our house is made of metal… our uncle is Abdullah and our depend is on god.

That was long ago and gone.

5

A few months before my arrest and then my exile abroad, I disappeared in a secret house in Ramallah during the war of 1973 and the security forces came to arrest me for my political activity in the city, but I disappeared and when the war was over, l left the house one evening heading to my house that is in the southern suburbs of the city, (and as time goes by, the city extended and my village became part of it) the house is standing on a hill of land in total darkness. I felt great happiness while approaching it, its my intimate place in which I lived with in with my family throughout all the stages of my life, it nurtured me every time I came to it sad, or battered by time and accompanied me in my happiness and in every success. Out of it left my five sisters to their husbands’ houses, and out of it came my sister to her cold grave after a miserable marriage, which only lasted one year, we took her back from the Hospice Hospital (9) in the afternoon and we put her home until the next morning,, we wanted her to stay with us one last night as if we were apologizing for the fate that we gave her when we pushed her to accept that marriage. And in the next morning we organized a funeral for her.

There was only a few steps between me and the house.

The American reporter Goan Mandel had told me that she cried when she approached the house one after noon.

she came as a tourist from her country then settled in Jerusalem and worked for a few years in Al-Fajr Newspaper’s English edition, she had a political stance that supported Palestinians, her writings and her oversensitivity stated so, as well as the tears that poured from her eyes whenever she got emotional.

She came to Jordan one time and I met her, she felt with me on my personal case since I was exiled. She suggested to a friend of her from Jerusalem to take her to Jabal Al- Mukaber to see my house that I lived in. they approached the house but Goan could not closer, so she left with her friend.

She later told me: I felt that the house was missing something, there was a scary absence, she said she could not take it, she was very emotional and left the house.

And here I am getting close to home, when I arrived, my mother and wife were nervous and so was my father, they were amazed since they knew nothing of my whereabouts during the past few weeks. They were happy but worried when they saw me among them, but a little while later, they kept peaking out through the door anxiously, towards the thickening darkness outside. My mother was most curious, her ears sensing every sound outside. Afraid that soldiers would come to arrest me.

6

While I was in exile, I lived in Prague for three years, and from there headed to various countries and capitals attending political seminars and conferences, while my wife and two daughters joined me, as for my three sons, they were studying in universities of the Soviet Union. Every while I would call my parents who remained in Jerusalem, I would cry every time I hear my mother’s voice on the telephone. My feelings of loneliness and homesickness increased when hearing her prayers for god to keep me safe from harm and evil. I used to expect that she would sit home alone, cry and sing sadly asking for god to protect her son.

Prague and the Czechoslovakian cities witnessed peaceful demonstrations, the order simply collapsed and Vatslav Havel came to rule, he is a theater writer and an opposition. I leave Prague with my family and head to Amman.

I left hoping to establish a home in Amman. The constant moving tired me; I began longing for stability. So I stayed in Amman, though I admired Amman, I was very anxious until I herd some news on the chance of the return of deportees in exile, I was so curious and kept investigating until I realized that my name was among those entitled for return.

7

It was a long absence; I had to live the exile in its every happy and painful detail.

In every city I moved to, I was obliged to establish the main conditions of livelihood, I’d look for a house for rent, schools for the children and work that would put food on the table, provide clothes and other necessities. I would look for good neighbors, new friends and start to buy new books that I would not mind leaving behind when I leave. So I’d leave them behind, unable to carry but a few books, and I would feel pain in my heart, but that is not all; there are other things that accumulate over the years: flower pots, house plants and other possessions I bought from around the world or from duty free shops in airports or gifts I received from organizations or committees during my participation in conferences and seminars, so where would I go with all these intimate possessions that accumulate by time in the house, the constant moving house, since it is out in exile, fragile and completely unstable.

After leaving Beirut after living there for eight worrisome months, in the midst of shelling and gunshots, I only carried one bag, the only one I could carry; it contained my clothes, my story draft and a few precious books. And it was in evident for me to start a new life in Amman.

In Amman I spent eleven years, throughout which I wrote short stories, Television drama’s and worked in teaching, in addition to the extra work in the newspaper. Amman was not far from Jerusalem, I used to meet some of my friends that I left there, who would come for work or a visit, we would sit in a restaurant, my house, or a coffee shop reminiscing about old times together in Jerusalem. The memories would make me feel glad and the longing would conquer me.

8

When the electronic screen lit up after three hours of waiting, I headed towards the Israeli employee and presented some papers, tax bills, water bills, and electricity bills, all that prove that I have been living in Jerusalem since my return.

He asked me: Where you outside the city for a while?
I said: I was away for eighteen years, because I was exiled.
And I said: I was exiled by an order from the Ministry of Defense.
He asked: why?
I said: for political reasons.
He asked: Do you have anything that proves that you were exiled?
I said: No
And I said: when your soldiers put me on the Lebanese borders, they did not care for giving me documents that assure my exile.
He asked: How did you return?
I said: By an order from your Prime Minister.
He asked: Do you have a copy of that order?
I said: No
And I said: I wasn’t the only returnee, the order contained another twenty nine deportees, we returned before the whole world and a number of Televisions and Radio stations discussed our return.
He shuffled through the papers I gave him and said: you will get an answer in a few days.

9

Here I am suffering again, going to the Ministry of Interior on Nablus Road (10) two years after my return to Jerusalem. After three months of waiting to get an Israeli travel document, my time for traveling approaches for my invitation by the Humanity Newspaper to attend the annual festival that is held in the suburbs of Paris, where politicians, reporters, writers and art groups attend from all around the world.

I go through all the routine procedures that became familiar to me every time I go anywhere. Starting from long hours of waiting in the sun, the prejudice of the guards and finally by leaving the building with a vague answer that makes me wait again. This time I decided to take aid from a center for the defense for Human Rights in East Jerusalem, where Palestinian and Israeli ladies work.

At first a young Palestinian girl called Maha who is slim and dark; handled the issue, she took the information needed then forwarded the issue to her Israeli colleague, Nita, who is slim, blond and moves gracefully from place to another carrying papers and files. Maha asked me to wait a bit wile Nita called the Ministry of Interior in West Jerusalem to inquire about the fate of my document. (The Employee in the Ministry of Interior told me that it had been sent a week ago to the ministry offices in West Jerusalem). When they denied that it has been there, Nita came back to tell me, but when I answered her, she called them again, so they had to tell assure that the document was at the Shabak Office (one of the Israeli Security Bureaus) and when they finish with studying it, they will have an answer. What is important now is when they will finish from it!

The Israeli office manager called Dalia told me:

-We will try to inquire, but we have no pressure over anybody.

And said: We will keep inquiring and we can assign a lawyer to follow up on the issue.

I thanked the three ladies and left the office.

I headed to Salah Eddin Street (11) getting nearer to Damascus Gate (12), heading to the Old Town (13) where some soldiers were situated on the gates of the Old Town and on its peaks. I asked myself, watching them checking the faces of the people nervously, until when will this last?

I remembered that a reporter form a European Television came to my house after my return home, and asked me about my point of view in regards to the problematic issue of Jerusalem.

I said: There are Israeli plans of imposing one point of view on a city which’s history has been made upon a multiracialism and cultural interaction.

I said: It’s the city of peace, and it should be made a city of peace.

And I said: The Judaization of Jerusalem is against the heritage of the city, the heritage that was derived from many cultures, and was molded in the past thousand years to a new shape.

I continued descending the steps that leads to the Damascus Gate and passed the gate that stands magnificent though its stones have aged and became pale.

I stood there for a while under the arch of the gate, and started remembering those who passed through this gate throughout the long history of this city. Then I walked and took the left towards the coffee shop of Damascus Gate.

I sat in there, and started remembering my life away from the city and close to it. And when I thought of death, I realized that I will be buried in it, and it will be my last city just as it was my first, though the fate of this city stayed vague until this sad moment.

Glossary:
1. Alhisbeh market: where vegetables are sold in east Jerusalem
2. Herods Gate: One of the Gates of Jerusalem
3. Al-Suwaneh downhill road: A place in east Jerusalem
4. Al-Baqa’a: an area in West Jerusalem
5. Hebron Road: a street in West Jerusalem
6. Juret Al-Enab: a place in West Jerusalem
7. Sultan’s Pool: a place in West Jerusalem
8. Jaffa Gate: One of the Gates of Jerusalem
9. Hospice: a hospital insider the old town of east Jerusalem, the hospital no longer exists. Now it is an Austrian cultural center.
10. Nablus Road: One of the roads of East Jerusalem
11. Salah Eddin Street: The main road of East Jerusalem
12. Damascus Gate: One of the gates of Jerusalem
13. The Old town: a name given to the old neighborhoods of Jerusalem that are within the walls.

*

Me and writing
Mahmoud Shukair

As a short story writer, I found myself in the mid of the seventies of the last century, unable to continue writing my short stories, according to the traditional narrative style which I was used to before. The rhythm of life has changed, and my personal life has been influenced by many things that made me unstable, and my feeling of the place and of the time was shaken so much.

In spite of this, my vision of things was enriched, because of my readings in world literature, and because of the experience and nostalgia I have witnessed in exile, when the Israeli authorities have deported me out of my home land, after putting me in jail for about two years, because of my political activities against the occupation.

That time in exile, I was influenced by the wave of experimental writings in the short story, and I published my second short story book “the Palestinian boy” in which I used new styles in writing: I used the montage of the cinema, cutting the narration and making a new scene, using more than one pronoun in the story etc.

But after that, I found myself in another crisis and I started to look for a new style which is suitable to express my feelings and aspirations. I felt, especially at the eighties of the last century, that the problems and defeats and bloodshed in the Palestinian and the Arab societies, became over the capacity of the short story, especially when the media was able to reflex these problems, in a way that we are no more in need of our photographic narrative styles. I started to feel that I have to move away from this outside world which is full of chaos and sound, and to come close to the inside of the human soul, to reflex what happens there, knowing in the same time that this is the outcome of what happening in the outside. It is indeed the resistance of the human soul against the outside order which brings aggression and alienation.

I inter a new way of writing, which depends on language, to have from it, its capacity of revelation, and to be far away from the tendency of information. I found myself getting into the field of poetry, to have advantage of some of its styles and ways of looking to the world. I was concerned of using little words and to maintain simplicity and concentration.

Since I have moved away from my first stories, I have the desire to get rid of the known types of writing which the short story has gained through its long history, and also to get rid of the types of writing which I make during the journey of writing. But this makes me worried all the time, and puts me in a crisis of narrating in a time or another. I am an anxious person, I don’t feel satisfied of what is around me of things and behaviors, and I don’t feel satisfied of what I write but a little.

Some time ago, at the time of young hood, writing didn’t cause me pain as it does now. My passions were more zealous. It was enough for me to notice a little disorder in the things around me, or in the behavior of the people whom I live with, then I will be full of feelings, and I will start writing. The world was less complicated as I have seen it that time, and I was more tolerant with my writings. I was more spontaneous and I used to feel enthusiasm while writing and after that for some days or when I see what I have written was published in a newspaper or a magazine.

Later, that enthusiasm became less. I started to publish my stories in many newspapers and magazines, and in books, and it seems ordinary for me now, not as before, may be because of the age, and may be because of the fact that we face a lot of problems here when we want to distribute our books. It is difficult for us to send our books to the Arab countries because of the Israeli occupation, and it is difficult in the same time to bring books from the Arab countries to Palestine.

When I was in exile for 18 years, I lived in Beirut, Prague, and Amman. And I started to feel unstable in any of these cities, in spite of my great love to all of them. I felt that I am always away from my origin city: Jerusalem. I think that being away from my first place made me alienated in my daily life, and took me to write very short stories, where the place is not defined exactly and that every city or a street or a restaurant or a café is suitable to be the place where my very short stories take place, beside that I can explain the tendency to write something like prose poems, which I gave them the definition as: very short stories.

When I returned to my home land in the year 1993, the first book which I wrote was about Jerusalem and myself. I wrote about my life in my city, and I wrote about the changes which the Israelis have done in the city in order to conceal its Palestinian face, and to make it a Jewish city by time.

After that, I started to write very short stories about my experiences in the world and under the occupation, and about the sufferings of the Palestinians who have experienced a lot of atrocities committed against them by the Israeli soldiers. These stories as I think where concerned in the inner aspect of the experience, and they deal with the things according to a human view, and they are concerned in a human and safe life, not only for the Palestinian people, but also for the Israeli people.

During the last two years, I didn’t write very short stories. I wrote new short stories full of humor. What is going now against my people is going according to our well-known proverb: the worst catastrophe is that one which makes you laugh. Now we face in Jerusalem and in the West Bank and Gaza strip something like that. The Israeli government says that it is in favor of peace, but this is not true, the truth is that Sharon is making more and more efforts to prevent real peace and to kill the goal of establishing a Palestinian State alongside Israel. Now, I write short stories which deal with the unhuman Israeli behavior against the Palestinians. I write this so as to let more and more people in the world and inside Israel itself to know about our sufferings.

At last, if it is true that the style is the man, I think it is true also that the moment of writing is the essence of the writer’s life. Without writing I don’t feel any meaning of my life. And because I belong to a small people who faces a strong army with sophisticated weapons, I feel that my life and the lives of my people who is forbidden of freedom, are not easy at all. We need the force of words to maintain a peaceful life for ourselves and for our children. Because of this I write my stories.

• Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2016 for his novel Praise for the Women of the Family.
• Al-Earany award for short story. 1991
• Mahmoud Darwish award for freedom and creativity. 2011
• Jerusalem award for culture and creativity. 2015
• The world award for Arabic novel, booker (short list)2016
• Palestine award for literature. 2019
• The award of The Turkish Writers’ Union 2023

“Jerusalem is the city which taught me how to be in favor of love, freedom, peace and diversity. “

“I write stories and novels so as the beauty of our world will be more, evil will be less.

“When justice will prevail in our world, all wars will come to an end. Then mothers and their children will sleep in peace.”

“When it became difficult for the Palestinians to move from one city to another because of the 500 Israeli check points, I wrote ironic stories in which I invited well known global personalities from the world, or I brought their names, like the Brazilian Ronaldo, the American singer Michel Jackson and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Rumsfeld to interact with the Palestinians under occupation.”