Review
'...at the core of this elegant, angry novel is the impossibility of disentangling the personal from the political for a couple 'too late to be unprecedented . . . too early to become just another relationship between two people from two different backgrounds' .' Alyssa McDonald --The New Statesman
'...a provocative and challenging work.' Akin Ajayi --Times Literary Supplement
'...a provocative and challenging work.' Akin Ajayi --Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
In London a couple meet at a party. She is Israeli and he Palestinian. Both are here to escape the politics of their countries and both want to be alone. Despite that, their relationship develops and inevitably they have to confront the politics that, in principle, separates them. Can their relationship survive? A clever, well-paced novel.
About the Author
Samir El-Youssef is Palestinian and was born in Rashidia, a refugee camp in Lebanon. His essays and reviews have appeared in Guardian, New Statesman, Washington Post, Jewish Quarterly as well as the Arabic Al-Hayat. He has been living in North London since 1990. In 2005 he won the Tucholsky Award for promoting the cause of peace and freedom of speech in the Middle East. The Illusion of Return is his first novel in English.
