The Lemon Tree

Nov 19, 2024 9:37 PM

Author:Sandy Tolan

The Lemon Tree

In the summer of 1967, not long after the Six Day War, three young Palestinian men ventured into the town of Ramla in Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes, from which they and their families had been driven out nearly twenty years earlier. One cousin had the door slammed in his face, one found that his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir, was met at the door by a young woman named Dalia, who invited him in...

This poignant encounter is the starting point for the story of two families - one Arab, one Jewish - which spans the fraught modern history of the region. In the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard of his childhood home, Bashir sees a symbol of occupation; Dalia, who arrived in 1948 as an infant with her family, as a fugitive from Bulgaria, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. Both are inevitably swept up in the fates of their people and the stories of their lives form a microcosm of more than half a century of Israeli-Palestinian history.

What began as a simple meeting between two young people grew into a dialogue lasting four decades. The Lemon Tree offers a much needed human perspective on this seemingly intractable conflict and reminds us not only of all that is at stake, but also of all that is possible.

Reviews

At a time when peace seems remote and darkness deepens, this lucid, humane, hopeful book shines like a ray of light

—— The Times

A superb, sustained piece of narrative non-fiction

—— The Sunday Times

Extraordinary... Tolan's narrative provides a much needed human dimension to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... a highly readable and evocative history

—— Washington Post

Reads like a novel... an informed take for anyone interested in the human stories behind a conflict

—— New Statesman

A fascinating and highly absorbing account full of warmth, compassion and hope

—— Scotland on Sunday

As they follow Dalia and Bashir's difficult friendship, readers will experience one of the world's most stubborn conflicts firsthand

—— Publishers Weekly

Masterly and brilliantly researched... If it were fiction, critics would no doubt hail the epic, almost Tolstoyan quality of this book

—— Morning Star

A much-needed antidote to the cynicism of realpolitik

—— Booklist

Affecting. Sensitively told. Humane and literate - and rather daring in suggesting that the future of the Middle East need not be violent

—— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The inspiring lives of two unique people, and Tolan's compassion in narrating them, illuminate the tragedy of Palestine in the most moving and revealing way

—— Karma Nabulsi, Prize Research Fellow, Oxford University

A hard book to read with dry eyes and without a lump in one's throat. And hard to read, also, without feeling - dare one even say the word? - something approaching hope

—— Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains and King Leopold's Ghost

An understated clash of cultures tale, delicately told

—— Radio Times

Impeccably researched... this narrative illustrates the possibility of compassionate imagination

—— TLS

Beautifully written

—— Tam Dalyell, MP

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