A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle by Raja Shehadeh

From Other Press An engrossing family memoir that shines a light on Palestine’s history, offering a wise, sobering view of how radically conditions there have changed since the late Ottoman Empire, from the award-winning author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I. Raja Shehadeh’s great-great-uncle Najib Nassar, a journalist born in 1865, spent the first 4 decades of his life under the Ottoman Empire. Ruled by a Muslim Sultan, the region nevertheless saw the coexistence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and a freedom of movement unthinkable in the present-day Middle East. On a 2-year quest to discover Najib’s fascinating story, Shehadeh follows his footsteps through what are now Lebanon and Israel, tracing the fall of the Empire after World War I and the disastrous British Mandate. A family memoir written in luminescent prose, A Rift in Time also reflects on how Palestine—in particular the disputed Jordan Rift Valley—has been transformed. Most of Palestine’s history and t