Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape

When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine in the late 1970s he was not aware that he was traveling through a vanishing landscape. The hills would have seemed familiar to Christ - until the day concrete was poured over the flora and irreversible changes were brought about by those who claim a superior love of the land.

The six walks described by Shehadeh in this thought-provoking book span a period of twenty-six years, in the hills around Ramallah, in the Jerusalem wilderness and through the ravines by the Dead Sea. Each walk takes place at a different stage of Palestinian history. The first in the steeply terraced hills marked only by olive and fruit trees and the last amongst the dominating Jewish settlements and the wall. Accompanying Shehadeh and his companions, the reader experiences the changing political atmosphere and physical transformation of the landscape.

Raja Shehadeh attempts not only to preserve in words the natural beauty of a landscape that has become so difficult to access but also to invite a new perspective on belonging, love and loss and the future of an endangered land.