Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life

by Sayed Kashua

Overview

Essays by “Jerusalem’s version of Charles Bukowski . . . Just as aware and critical—of his city, his family, Israel, the Arabs, but most of all of himself” (NPR).

Sayed Kashua has been praised by the New York Times as “a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society.” An Arab-Israeli who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing with the hope of creating one story that both Palestinians and Israelis could relate to, rather than two that cannot coexist together. He devoted his novels and his satirical weekly column published in Haaretz to telling the Palestinian story and exploring the contradictions of modern Israel, while also capturing the nuances of everyday family life in all its tenderness and chaos.

With an intimate tone fueled by deep-seated apprehension and razor-sharp ironic wit, Kashua has been documenting his own life as well as that of society at large: he writes about his children’s upbringing and encounters with racism, about fatherhood and married life, the Jewish-Arab conflict, his professional ambitions, travels around the world as an author, and—more than anything—his love of books and literature. He brings forth a series of brilliant, caustic, wry, and fearless reflections on social and cultural dynamics as experienced by someone who straddles two societies.

“One of the most celebrated satirists in Hebrew literature . . . [Kashua] has an acerbic, dry wit and a talent for turning everyday events into apocalyptic scenarios.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“What is most striking in these columns is the universality of what it means to be a father, husband and man.”—Toronto Star

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802190185
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	02/26/2020
Series:	Books That Changed the World
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	811,029
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Sayed Kashua is a Palestinian Arab who lived in Jerusalem until July 2014; he now lives in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of three novels: DANCING ARABS (2002), LET IT BE MORNING (2004) and SECOND PERSON SINGULAR (2010). Kashua publishes a weekly column in Haaretz newspaper and is the creator and script writer of the critically acclaimed satiric television sitcom "Arab Labor." The film, DANCING ARABS, based on that novel and in part, SECOND PERSON SINGULAR, opened the Jerusalem International Film Festival in July 2014.

Kashua is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2004 Grinzane Cavour Award for First Novel 2004 (Italy), the 2005 Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel), the 2006 Lessing Prize for Critic (Germany), the 2010 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award in 2010 (USA), the 2011 Bernstein Prize (Israel) and the 2012 Prix des Lecteurs du Var (France).

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Part I Warning Signs (2006-2007)

Warning Signs 3

High Tech 7

Head Start 11

I, the Jury 15

Happy Birthday 18

Holiday in Tel Aviv 22

I Stand Accused 26

Unseamly 30

Happy Holiday 35

Instead of a Story 39

Stage Fright 43

Do You Love Me? 47

Nouveau Riche 52

My Investment Advice 55

A Room of My Own 59

The Next Big Tiling 62

Yes, I Don't Want To 65

The Bicycle 69

Vox Populi 73

Part II Foreign Passports (2008-2010)

Foreign Passports 79

Sayed's Theater 83

Rabbit Monster 87

Home Again 91

New Deal 95

Taking Notice 99

Land of Unlimited Possibilities 103

Good Morning, Israel 107

Superman and Me 115

Bar-Side Banter 120

Cry Me a River 124

Kashua's Complaint 129

Part III Antihero (2010-2012)

Antihero 135

Castles in the Air 139

The Writers Festival 143

Meet the Author 147

Night Conversation 151

The Bypass 155

Good-Bye, Dad 159

That Burning Feeling 162

A Friend in Need 166

Pilgrims' Progress 170

Dishing it Out 174

A Lesson in Arabic 178

Holy Work 182

Car Noir 186

The Bigger Picture 190

And Then the Police Arrived 195

What's in a Name? 199

Loving One's Son Just as Nature Made Him-Uncircumcised 203

Still Small Voices in the Night 207

Homework 211

Dutch Treat. Or Not. 215

Part IV The Stories That I Don't Dare Tell (2012-2014)

The Stories That I Don't Dare Tell 221

Pride and Prejudice 225

Splash Back 229

The Heavens Will Weep 233

Without Parents 237

Love Therapist 241

Bibi Does 245

Old Man 249

Quest for Another Homeland 253

The Court! 257

Electricity in the Air 261

Is There a Future? 265

An Open Letter from the Piece of Shrapnel in the Rear End of an IDF Soldier 269

A Revolutionary Peace Plan 272

America 275

Good-Bye Cigarettes, Hello Yoga 279

Farewell 283

Editorial Reviews

10/12/2015
This startling and insightful collection of Kashua’s (Second Person Singular) popular weekly columns for the Hebrew-language newspaper Haaretz narrates the sobering reality of life as an Israeli-Palestinian. A sense of mistrust and fear constantly thrums beneath his otherwise humorous reports on family life, literary life, and occasional drunkenness. Behind the bashful, bumbling antiheroics and ubiquitous self-deprecation lies a quiet, sane voice pleading for integration of “the two narratives of the two peoples.” Kashua conveys devastating social critique through dry wit, precise metaphor, and seemingly innocent subjects, while in the periphery the rife racism and rising body count speak to the increasing struggle to reconcile two drastically different viewpoints. Whether recounting the insults encountered by his children, shaming from friends and critics alike, Kafkaesque encounters with the civil justice system, or his dreams of escape, Kashua maintains a light satiric tone and steady compassion even as the essays slide into disillusionment. Some nuances may be lost on American audiences, but Kashua’s subtly shaded, necessarily complex, and ultimately despairing account of the tensions within his homeland, “so beloved and so cursed,” is bound to open the eyes and awaken the sympathies of a new swath of loyal readers. Agent: Deborah Harris, Deborah Harris Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for NATIVE

"[Kashua is] like Jerusalem's version of Charles Bukowski. A chain-smoking, drunk, constipated cataloger of life's daily ills, illustrating through the simplest of social transactions how complicated a life can become when the threads of it start slipping away from you. Not so pugnacious, maybe, but just as vulnerable. Just as aware and critical—of his city, his family, Israel, the Arabs, but most of all of himself." —NPR

"What is most striking in these columns is the universality of what it means to be a father, husband and man." —Toronto Star

"Moving, revealing." —National Post

"Startling and insightful. . . . Kashua conveys devastating social critique through dry wit, precise metaphor, and seemingly innocent subjects, while in the periphery the rife racism and rising body count speak to the increasing struggle to reconcile two drastically different viewpoints. . . . Kashua’s subtly shaded, necessarily complex, and ultimately despairing account of the tensions within his homeland, 'so beloved and so cursed,' is bound to open the eyes and awaken the sympathies of a new swath of loyal readers." —Publishers Weekly

"By turns funny, angry, and moving, Kashua's 'dispatches' offer revealing glimpses into the meanings of family and fatherhood and provide keen insight into the deeply rooted complexities of a tragic conflict. A wickedly ironic but humane collection." —Kirkus Reviews

"Kashua simply narrates, column after column, the impossibility of living as an Arab in the Jewish state. Sure, the columns are still clever and entertaining in their left-handed anti-heroism. They succeed in being symbolic without dissonance or figurative effort. . . . This is among the most justified collections of newspaper columns ever published in Israel." —Haaretz

"Being a Palestinian who was born and raised in Israel, Sayed Kashua is an embodiment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If he only was a little less sincere, perceptive, and talented he would have probably been able to co-exist with himself. Native is a book that will make you lose most hope in the power of national processes but, at the same time, will leave you in awe about the incredible force of humanity, humor, and some good damn writing." —Etgar Keret

"Just when you think everything that can be said about the Middle East has been said, Sayed Kashua brings us this remarkable book. At once hilarious and tragic, rueful and sweet, absurd and insightful, it should be required reading for anyone who thinks they know anything at all about Palestine and Israel." —Ayelet Waldman

From the Publisher

09/01/2015
Distinguished Israeli novelist Kashua has won a half-dozen international awards and publishes a weekly column in Haaretz newspaper; the film Dancing Arabs, which draws on two of his novels, opened the Jerusalem International Film Festival in July 2014. He's also a Palestinian Arab who recently moved his family to Urbana-Champaign, IL, explaining that he had finally despaired of his dream of Jewish-Arab coexistence. Written between 2006 and 2014, the essays here explore the personal and the political and how they intersect.

Library Journal

2015-11-10
A journalist and novelist's sharp-eyed take on his life as a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian in Jerusalem. In this collection of columns for Haaretz, a weekly Israeli newspaper, Kashua (Israel Studies/Univ. of Illinois; Second Person Singular, 2012, etc.) illuminates the condition of Palestinians in Israel by offering humorous, and at times painful, anecdotes about his own life. In the opening essay, the author establishes the satiric tone that characterizes the text, poking fun at himself as "a chronic liar [and] gossip" by assuming the voice of his long-suffering wife. Kashua then goes on to detail the inconveniences that his family suffers as ethnic and religious minorities in Jerusalem. Believers in a bicultural, bilingual Israel, the author and his wife found their ideals under constant siege. In "High Tech," for example, he describes an outing with his young daughter when he told her she could speak Arabic "everywhere, anytime [she] want[ed], but not at the entrance to a mall," which was protected by heavily armed Israeli security guards. His deeper anxieties about being a minority are apparent in such essays as "Taking Notice." There, he tells the story of a sign he put up at the all-Jewish apartment complex where he and his upwardly mobile family moved. The possibility of not being accepted by his neighbors bothered him so much that he worried incessantly about everything, including whether he was using proper Hebrew phrases and handwriting techniques. Yet the careful moderation he practiced while living in a country hostile to Palestinians offered him neither peace nor safety from either "Israelis who hurl accusations of betrayal and disloyalty…[or] Arabs who hurl accusations of betrayal and segregation." Eventually, Kashua and his family moved to the United States, where they faced "another type of society and the inevitable acclimatization problems." By turns funny, angry, and moving, Kashua's "dispatches" offer revealing glimpses into the meanings of family and fatherhood and provide keen insight into the deeply rooted complexities of a tragic conflict. A wickedly ironic but humane collection.

Kirkus Reviews