Shukair, a 77 year-old playwright, novelist, and writer of all sorts, presents a series of interlocking vignettes following an extended family around the city of Jerusalem. Each view is about a page long and all of them are beautifully written. In many of the stories, the characters wander around the city, going about their lives, seeing the city as it is and as it was. The narrator says of his life in the city, "I am forty and now, you see, the war is forty-two. The city is more ancient than either of us , too many years to count. While members of the extended family focus on either their present circumstances or problems from their past, the narrator and one or two others see through the centuries sometimes, meeting soldiers armed with swords and lances, or donning armor themselves to defend the city they see. All of the characters must navigate the paranoia, the actual betrayals, and the hidden fears that are the results of a city frequently at war and always in physical danger.
Translated by Nicole Fares.
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