Samir El-Youssef – författare

After 17 years, the narrator and his friend, Ali, meet at Heathrow andslowly remember their past in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon. Their memories are concentrated on one fatal night when they were with two other friends for the last time, before tragedy struck. But for the narrator, a personal tragedy had occurred much earlier¿Like many other Palestinians, both Ali and the narrator had to leave Lebanon in the mid-1980s, when it became a battleground for local armies - Ali to America, the narrator to London.But this is not just a story about suffering, it is also about absurd politicsand violence - about a world where tragedy and comedy co-exist. A poignant story that lingers long after one has finished it.

In London a couple meet at a party. She is Israeli and he Palestinian. Both are here to escape the politics of their countries and both want to be alone.Despite that, their relationship develops and inevitably they have to confront the politics that, in principle, separates them.Can their relationship survive?A clever, well-paced novel.