This tight text, charged with intense lyricism, which tells the story of the return after long years of exile to Ramallah in the West Bank in September 1996 is one of the finest forms of writing the existential experience of the Palestinian diaspora that we have now, and it gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to say a few words as an introduction to this Work, but having myself made a similar trip to Jerusalem (after an absence of 45 years), I know exactly this mixture of feelings where happiness mixes with regret, sadness, astonishment, indignation and other feelings that accompany such a return. The greatness, strength and freshness of Murid Al-Barghouti’s book lies in that it records In a painfully accurate way, this emotional mixture is complete, and in its ability to give clarity and serenity to the vortex of feelings and thoughts that dominate a person in such cases. Or ideological motives Everything that is political in the book results from the real living conditions in the lives of Palestinians surrounded by restrictions related to residency and departure. For most of the peoples of the earth who are citizens with passports and can travel freely without thinking about their identity all the time, the issue of travel and residence is a foregone conclusion. From it, while it is fraught with great tension among the Palestinians who have no state, and so, despite the joy and moments of ecstasy that this text carries, in its essence it evokes exile, not return.
