Non-Fiction

Palestinian Walks is a lyrical memoir in which Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shehadeh recounts years of walking through the hills and valleys of the West Bank. Through six walks taken over several decades, Shehadeh explores a landscape he has known since childhood, documenting its natural beauty, ancient paths, wildflowers, and rocky hillsides. As he returns to familiar places, he witnesses how expanding settlements, roads, and political restrictions transform the countryside and limit access to land that once felt open and familiar. Combining personal reflection, nature writing, and historical observation, Shehadeh examines the relationship between landscape, memory, and belonging. His walks become both a way of reconnecting with the natural world and a means of understanding the changes reshaping Palestinian life. The book offers an intimate portrait of a threatened environment, revealing how the loss of familiar places can also mean the erosion of cultural memory, personal freedom, and a sense of home.

In Dead Aid, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo challenges one of the most widely accepted assumptions about international development: that financial aid from wealthy countries is an effective way to combat poverty in Africa. Drawing on economic research and historical examples, she argues that decades of government-to-government assistance have often failed to deliver sustainable growth, while contributing to corruption, political dependency, and weakened local markets. Rather than calling for an end to all forms of assistance, Moyo focuses on long-term development aid and proposes alternative ways for African countries to finance their economies. Her recommendations include attracting foreign investment, expanding trade, accessing international capital markets, and strengthening domestic financial systems. Provocative and controversial, the book challenges readers to reconsider the relationship between wealthy nations and developing countries. Moyo calls for African governments to pursue greater economic independence and for policymakers to rethink the mechanisms through which development is financed. Whether readers agree with her conclusions or not, Dead Aid raises important questions about accountability, sovereignty, and the effectiveness of international development policy.

In A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle, Palestinian writer and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh explores the connections between family history, national identity, and the changing political landscape of the Middle East. Inspired by the life of his great-uncle Najib Nassar, a Palestinian journalist who lived during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, Shehadeh traces the journey of a man who witnessed the collapse of an empire and the emergence of a new political order. Moving between historical research, personal reflection, and travel writing, the author examines how the experiences of earlier generations continue to shape contemporary Palestinian life. Through his uncle’s story, Shehadeh reflects on the meaning of belonging, the fragility of historical memory, and the ways political borders transform people’s relationships with their homeland. The book offers an intimate exploration of the past, revealing how an individual’s life can illuminate the wider forces that shape a nation’s history and collective identity.

The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist explores how novels work and why reading fiction can transform our understanding of ourselves and the world. Drawing on his experience as a novelist and his lifelong engagement with literature, Orhan Pamuk examines the relationship between writers, readers, and the fictional worlds they create. Inspired by Friedrich Schiller’s distinction between naive and sentimental poetry, Pamuk considers two approaches to storytelling: one that emerges naturally from experience and another that consciously reflects on its own methods and meanings. Through examples from writers such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Thomas Mann, Pamuk discusses character, plot, setting, symbolism, and the delicate balance between imagination and observation. He also explores the pleasure readers find in entering a novel’s world, visualising its landscapes, and identifying with its characters. Blending literary criticism with personal reflection, the book offers an intimate account of the novelist’s craft and the reader’s experience. Ultimately, Pamuk suggests that the power of fiction lies in its ability to make imagined worlds feel as vivid and meaningful as reality itself.

In Tears of the Black Man, Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou examines the complex relationship between Africa and the West, exploring how colonial history, migration, and racial stereotypes continue to shape perceptions of Black identity. Drawing on personal experiences, literature, and cultural observations, Mabanckou challenges simplified narratives that portray Africans solely as victims of colonialism or racism. The book reflects on the expectations placed on Black people in Europe, the contradictions within contemporary African societies, and the ways historical grievances can influence individual and collective identities. Mabanckou also questions the tendency to explain present-day difficulties exclusively through the legacy of slavery and colonial rule, encouraging readers to consider the role of personal agency and contemporary political realities. Blending memoir, cultural criticism, and social commentary, the work offers a provocative reflection on race, belonging, and the ongoing dialogue between Africa and the wider world.

Secondhand Time is a documentary work by Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich that captures the emotional and psychological aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through hundreds of interviews with ordinary people across the former Soviet republics, Alexievich assembles a collective portrait of a society struggling to understand the end of an entire political and cultural world. Her subjects include former Soviet idealists, disillusioned workers, survivors of political repression, and younger generations searching for meaning in a transformed society. Their testimonies reveal conflicting memories of communism, nostalgia for a lost sense of belonging, and the difficulties of adapting to new economic and social realities. Moving between intimate personal experiences and major historical events, the book explores how ideology shapes identity and how political change reverberates through private lives. Rather than presenting a single interpretation of the Soviet collapse, Alexievich allows contradictory voices to coexist, revealing the complexity of collective memory and the enduring human desire for dignity, security, and meaning.

In Kissing the Sword, Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipur recounts her experiences as a political prisoner in post-revolutionary Iran. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the new authorities began detaining people associated with opposing political views. Parsipur herself was imprisoned without formal charges, experiencing the fear, uncertainty, and psychological strain of incarceration. Through vivid personal recollections, she describes life inside Iranian prisons, including encounters with fellow prisoners, interrogations, ideological disputes, and the harsh treatment of detainees. Her memoir also explores the restrictions imposed on women, particularly debates surrounding religious authority, dress, and individual autonomy. Combining painful memories with moments of dark humour and reflection, Parsipur examines the relationship between political power and personal freedom. The book is both a record of her own experiences and a broader meditation on censorship, resistance, and the resilience required to preserve one’s voice under repression.

What happens when you finally return to the homeland you were forced to leave as a child—and discover that it no longer feels like home? More than fifty years after her family fled Jerusalem during the 1948 Nakba, Palestinian-British doctor and writer Ghada Karmi returns to Palestine, hoping to contribute to the struggle for peace and Palestinian statehood. Working with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, she encounters the realities of occupation, military restrictions, political bureaucracy, and a homeland transformed beyond recognition. As she revisits places connected to her childhood and confronts the loss of her family home, Karmi wrestles with a deeply personal question: can exile ever truly end? An intimate memoir of displacement and belonging, Return explores the painful distance between the homeland preserved in memory and the reality of returning to it.

In Other Words is a memoir about Jhumpa Lahiri’s decision to learn Italian and her determination to express herself through a language that is not her own. Although she grew up speaking English and Bengali, Lahiri develops a deep fascination with Italian and eventually moves to Rome with her family to immerse herself in the language. Written originally in Italian and published with an English translation, the book reflects on the vulnerability, frustration, and freedom involved in learning to communicate in unfamiliar words. Through personal anecdotes, literary reflections, and metaphors, Lahiri compares language learning to migration, describing the experience of becoming an outsider in a place where she longs to belong. The memoir explores creativity, cultural identity, and the relationship between language and selfhood, revealing how adopting a new language can create space for reinvention and a different understanding of oneself.

Novelist as a Vocation offers Haruki Murakami’s reflections on the craft of writing, the life of a novelist, and the habits that sustain a long creative career. Drawing on his own experiences, Murakami discusses how he became a writer, the importance of originality, and the discipline required to transform ideas into finished novels. He considers the relationship between imagination and reality, explaining how writers develop distinctive voices and create fictional worlds that feel convincing to readers. Beyond practical advice, Murakami reflects on literary recognition, criticism, education, and the pressures of the publishing industry. He questions conventional ideas about literary talent and argues that persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to work consistently are essential to creative development. The book also reveals aspects of Murakami’s personal philosophy, including his commitment to routine, physical exercise, and independent thinking. Part memoir and part meditation on artistic practice, it offers insight into how a novelist builds a sustainable relationship with writing while protecting the freedom to follow an individual creative vision.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood is a memoir recounting Ibtisam Barakat’s childhood during and after the 1967 Six-Day War. Growing up in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Barakat experiences the fear and confusion of war as her family flees their home, leaving behind the familiar world of her early years. Through the eyes of a young girl, she describes the uncertainty of displacement, the separation of families, and the emotional challenges of growing up amid political conflict. Despite the hardship surrounding her, Barakat discovers refuge in language, reading, and education, gradually finding ways to understand and express her experiences. Written in lyrical, accessible prose, the memoir captures how a child makes sense of violence and loss while holding on to curiosity and hope. It offers an intimate perspective on Palestinian history, exploring the relationship between memory, identity, language, and belonging, and demonstrating how storytelling can become a means of survival and self-discovery.

In Cyprus, even ordering a coffee can become a political statement. In The Traitors’ Club, Marina Christofides recounts the experiences of a group of friends from both sides of the island’s division who refuse to define themselves solely as Greek Cypriots or Turkish Cypriots. Instead, they choose to identify as Cypriots, united by their belief that people from both communities can live together in peace. Gathering over coffee in an Ottoman courtyard in divided Nicosia, the friends share stories that are often funny, sometimes harrowing, and always deeply personal. Their conversations reveal the lasting effects of British colonial rule, intercommunal violence, the 1974 Turkish invasion, and the partition of Cyprus. Through their memories, the political history of the island becomes an intimate story of families, friendships, displacement, and the struggle to coexist. The group calls itself the Traitors’ Club because, in a society shaped by competing national loyalties, friendship across the divide can be viewed as an act of betrayal. Yet their willingness to listen to one another challenges the divisions that politicians and historical conflicts have reinforced. Moving between memories of an idyllic childhood, the trauma of fleeing during wartime, and the everyday realities of living in a divided country, Christofides offers a personal perspective on the Cyprus conflict. The memoir celebrates the courage of ordinary people who refuse to let political boundaries determine whom they can love, trust, or call their own.