Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation

by Michael Chabon

  POROCHISTA KHAKPOUR was born in Tehran, raised in Los Angeles, and lives in New York City. She is the author of the forthcoming memoir Sick (HarperPerennial, 2017), and the novels The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014)—a 2014 best book of the year according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and more—and Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove, 2007), the 2007 California Book Award winner in first fiction, one of the Chicago Tribune’s Fall’s Best, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in Harper’s, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Al-Jazeera America, Bookforum, Slate, Salon, Spin, Daily Beast, Elle, and many other publications around the world. She is currently writer-in-residence at Bard College.

  HARI KUNZRU, born in London, is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, and Gods Without Men, as well as a short story collection, Noise, and a novella, Memory Palace. His forthcoming novel White Tears will be published in 2017. His short stories and essays have appeared in diverse publications, including the New York Times, The New Yorker, Guardian, London Review of Books, Granta, BookForum, and Frieze. He was a 2008 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow.

  RACHEL KUSHNER is the author of two novels, The Flamethrowers and Telex from Cuba—both finalists for the National Book Award, and a book of stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. She lives in Los Angeles.

  EIMEAR McBRIDE studied at Drama Centre London. Her debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, received a number of awards, including the Goldsmiths Prize, Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, and Irish Novel of the Year. She occasionally writes and reviews for the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and New Statesman. Her second novel, The Lesser Bohemians, was published in 2016.

  COLUM McCANN is the author of six novels and three collections of stories. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he has been the recipient of many international honors, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin IMPAC Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, the election to the Irish Arts Academy, several European awards, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. His work has been published in forty languages. He is the cofounder of the nonprofit global story exchange organization Narrative 4, and he teaches in the MFA program at Hunter College.

  EVA MENASSE is an Austrian-born writer and essayist, living in Berlin. Menasse had a successful career as a journalist, writing for leading German and Austrian newspapers such as Frankfurter Allgemeine, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Die Zeit. She reported on the David Irving Holocaust-denial trial in London in 2000 and wrote a nonfiction book on it, The Holocaust on Trial. The English translation of her first novel, Vienna, was short-listed for the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. Her last novel Quasikristalle (Quasicrystals, 2013) was a bestseller in Germany, and was awarded the Heinrich Böll and Jonathan Swift Prizes. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages.

  EMILY RABOTEAU is the author of a novel, The Professor’s Daughter, and a work of creative nonfiction, Searching For Zion, which was named a Best Book of 2013 by the Huffington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as being a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, the grand prize winner of the New York Book Festival, and winner of a 2014 American Book Award. An avid world traveler, Raboteau resides in New York City and teaches creative writing in Harlem at City College, once known as “the poor man’s Harvard.”

  TAIYE SELASI is a writer and photographer. Born in London and raised in Boston, she holds a BA in American Studies from Yale and an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford. In 2005 she published the seminal essay “Bye-Bye, Babar (or: What is an Afropolitan?),” offering an alternative vision of African identity for a transnational generation. In 2011 she made her fiction debut with “The Sex Lives of African Girls,” selected for Best American Short Stories 2012. In 2013, Selasi’s first novel, Ghana Must Go, a New York Times bestseller, was selected as one of the ten best books of 2013 by the Wall Street Journal and the Economist. She is currently writing her second novel.

  RAJA SHEHADEH is a writer and lawyer who founded the pioneering Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq. Shehadeh is the author of several acclaimed books, including Strangers in the House, Occupation Diaries, Language of War, Language of Peace, and winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize for Palestinian Walks (all published by Profile). He lives in Ramallah in Palestine. His latest book, Where the Line Is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendship and Fifty Years of Occupation, will be published in Spring 2017.

  MADELEINE THIEN was born in Vancouver. She is the author of a story collection and three novels, including Dogs at the Perimeter. Her most recent book Do Not Say We Have Nothing, about music, art, and revolution in China was short-listed for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, and won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her work has been short-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and Berlin’s International Literature Prize, and her books and stories have been translated into twenty-six languages. The daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants to Canada, she lives in Montreal.

  COLM TÓIBÍN is the author of eight novels, including The Master and Brooklyn. His play The Testament of Mary was nominated for a Tony Award for best play in 2013. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University.

  MARIO VARGAS LLOSA was born in Arequipa, and also spent parts of his youth in Cochabamba (Bolivia), Piura in northern Peru, and Lima. He made his debut as a novelist with The Time of the Hero (1962). His other works include the novels Conversation in the Cathedral, The Green House, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, Who Killed Palomino Molero?, The Storyteller, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Feast of the Goat, The Bad Girl, The Dream of the Celt, and The Discreet Hero, and the plays La Chunga, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, and The Young Lady from Tacna, among other works. He has also published several books of essays. He has been awarded the Leopoldo Alas Prize (1959), the Rómulo Gallegos Prize (1967), the National Critics’ Prize (1967), the Critics’ Annual Prize for Theatre (1981), the Prince of Asturias Prize (1986), the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1994)—the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor,—the Jerusalem Prize (1995), the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1996), the PEN/Nabokov Award (2002), and the Nobel Prize (2010).

  AYELET WALDMAN is the author of the book A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life, and of the novels Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and Daughter’s Keeper, as well as the essay collection Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace. She is the editor of Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, Michael Chabon, with whom she edited this volume.

  JACQUELINE WOODSON is the 2014 National Book Award winner for her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming. Her novel Another Brooklyn was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. She is the author of more than two dozen books for young adults, middle graders, and children. Among many awards, she is also a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, a recipient of the NAACP Image Award, a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, and was recently named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. Her book Miracle’s Boy received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Jacqueline was also the winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and was the 2013 United States nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Permissions

  “The Dovekeeper” by Geraldine Brooks. Copyright © 2017 by Geraldine Brooks.

  “One’s Own People” by Jacqueline Woodson. Copyright © 2017 by Jacqueline Woodson.

  “Bloated Time and the Death of
Meaning” by Ala Hlehel. Copyright © 2017 by Ala Hlehel.

  “Giant in a Cage” by Michael Chabon. Copyright © 2017 by Michael Chabon.

  “The Land in Winter” by Madeleine Thien. Copyright © 2017 by Madeleine Thien.

  “Mr. Nice Guy” by Rachel Kushner. Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Kushner. First published in altered form in The New York Times Magazine, December 1, 2016.

  “Sami” by Raja Shehadeh. Copyright © 2017 by Raja Shehadeh.

  “Occupied Words” by Lars Saabye Christensen. Copyright © 2017 by Lars Saabye Christensen.

  “Prison Visit” by Dave Eggers. Copyright © 2017 by Dave Eggers.

  “Sumud” by Emily Raboteau. Copyright © 2017 by Emily Raboteau.

  “Journey to the West Bank” by Mario Vargas Llosa. Copyright © 2017 by Mario Vargas Llosa.

  “Playing for Palestine” by Assaf Gavron. Copyright © 2017 by Assaf Gavron.

  “Love in the Time of Qalandiya” by Taiye Selasi. Copyright © 2017 by Taiye Selasi.

  “Imagining Jericho” by Colm Tóibín. Copyright © 2017 by Colm Tóibín.

  “The End of Reasons” by Eimear McBride. Copyright © 2017 by Eimear McBride.

  “High Places” by Hari Kunzru. Copyright © 2017 by Hari Kunzru.

  “Storyland” by Lorraine Adams. Copyright © 2017 by Lorraine Adams.

  “The Separation Wall” by Helon Habila. Copyright © 2017 by Helon Habila.

  “A Hundred Children” by Eva Menasse. Copyright © 2017 by Eva Menasse.

  “Visible, Invisible: Two Worlds” by Anita Desai. Copyright © 2017 by Anita Desai.

  “Hip-Hop Is Not Dead” by Porochista Khakpour. Copyright © 2017 by Porochista Khakpour.

  “Occupation’s Untold Story” by Fida Jiryis. Copyright © 2017 by Fida Jiryis.

  “An Unsuitable Place for Clowns” by Arnon Grunberg. Copyright © 2017 by Arnon Grunberg.

  “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue” by Ayelet Waldman. Copyright © 2017 by Ayelet Waldman.

  “Two Stories, So Many Stories” by Colum McCann. Copyright © 2017 by Colum McCann.

  “H2” by Maylis de Kerangal. Copyright © 2017 by Maylis de Kerangal.

  Yehuda Amichai, poems “Ecology of Jerusalem” and “Sandals.” Translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. From The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Yehuda Amichai.

  Mahmoud Darwish, Journal of an Ordinary Grief. Translated by Ibrahim Muhawi. Beirut: Archipelago Books, 1973. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

  Tamer Nafar, “Who’s the Terrorist” and “Scarlett Johansson Has Gas.” Reprinted with permission of the author.

  Copyright

  Copyright and permissions notices are continued in the permissions chapter.

  The names and identifying characteristics of a number of individuals depicted in this book have been changed.

  kingdom of olives and ash. Compilation and introduction copyright © 2017 by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

  first edition

  Cover design by John Gall

  Cover photograph © pilens / 123RF Stock Photo

  Digital Edition MAY 2017 ISBN: 9780062431790

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-243178-3

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada

  www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

  Rosedale 0632

  Auckland, New Zealand

  www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF, UK

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  www.harpercollins.com

  * United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, adopted unanimously on November 22, 1967. The preamble asserts the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every State in the area can live in security.” The first clause of Operative Paragraph One is, “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in recent conflict.”

  * Mitzpeh Avigayil is an Israeli settler outpost, illegal under Israeli law. The High Court of Justice ordered a freeze on its development, and in 2003 the outpost was slated for demolition by the Israeli government. The demolition was never carried out; rather, the settlement grew. In 2014, the Israeli government announced procedures to legalize the outpost. Mitzpeh Avigayil borders Nael Abu Aram’s land, his property rights to which were recognized by the Israeli courts, but a portion of which was seized by Israel as a “closed military zone.”

  * According to a map from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA oPt), “Restricting Space in the OPT Area C Map, December 2011,” 99 percent of Area C is heavily restricted or off limits to Palestinian development, with 68 percent reserved for Israeli settlements, approximately 21 percent for closed military zones, and 9 percent for nature reserves.

  * A World Bank report found that potential revenue from Area C for Palestinians would be at least USD 2.2 billion per year, or 23 percent of the Palestinian GDP; the total potential value added would be USD 3.4 billion, or 35 percent of the GDP. See “West Bank and Gaza—Area C and the Future of the Palestinian Economy,” World Bank, 2 October 2013.

  * “State land,” a term taken from the Ottoman land-tenure system.

  * B’Tselem is the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories; Ta’ayush is the Arab-Jewish Partnership, Israelis and Palestinians striving together to end the Israeli occupation and to achieve full civil equality through daily nonviolent direct action.

  * A sampling of the July 2015 international media: Diaa Hadid, “How a Palestinian Hamlet of 340 Drew Global Attention,” New York Times, 23 July 2015; Erin McLaughlin, Kareem Khadder, and Bryony Jones, “Life in Susiya, the Palestinian Village Under Threat from Israeli Bulldozers,” CNN, 24 July 2015, www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/middleeast/susiya-palestinian-village-under-threat/; Peter Beaumont, “EU Protests against Israeli Plans to Demolish Palestinian Village,” The Guardian, 21 July 2015.

  * Remi Kanazi, Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine (Chicago: Haymarket, 2015).

  * Names of this individual and many others whom I interviewed have been changed to protect their privacy.

  * Text on the wall of the City of David archaeological site.

  * Following the publication of the report authored by journalist Meron Rapoport, Elad filed a lawsuit in Israel against Ir Amim. The suit was settled, without retraction.

  * All of the characters in this essay are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  * You can read and watch Breaking the Silence testimonies at http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database

  >   Michael Chabon, Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation

  (Series: # )