![]() ![]() ![]() I hung out under the Jericho stars with Bassam. He read hundreds of books and poems and plays about the Middle East and made multiple trips, staying with the men and their families, talking and walking, and above all listening. Initially, his process resembled that of a non-fiction author. Being a writer, he knew that he wanted to at least try to tell their stories in a book – a decision that would perhaps always have raised questions about entitlement and the ownership of stories, but one that seems especially audacious at a time when cultural appropriation has become such a pressing concern that publishers are hiring ‘sensitivity readers’. They had told it hundreds of times before. But I was forever changed,” McCann tells BBC Culture. It felt like the first time they had ever told the story. “They pinched every ounce of oxygen from the air,” he says. The hit novel that skewers white privilege There, two men, an Israeli named Rami Elhanan, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian, described how they’d each lost a young daughter to the conflict between their people, how they’d since become friends and how, together, they’d made it their life’s work to share their story in pursuit of peace. ![]() On his penultimate night, he found himself in a small office in Beit Jala, just outside Jerusalem. Five years ago, novelist Colum McCann was nearing the end of a whirlwind trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories. ![]()
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