A fierce and moving memoir on returning to Palestine, the meaning of exile and homeland, and the habitual place and status of a person, from the late Palestinian Mourid Barghouti.

Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six Day War, Barghouti spent thirty years in exile: shuttling betwween the world’s cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from is family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen or a guest.

As he returns to Ramallah for the first time since the Israeli occupation, crossing a wooden bridge over the Jordan River, Barghouti is unable to recognize the city of his youth. He discovers how the joy of return and reunion is accompanied by a feeling of insurmountable loss.

A tour de force of memory, reflection and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is deeply humane and is essential to any balanced understanding of today’s Middle East.