Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries
SynopsisPlot
Capturing the frustrations, cabin fever, and downright misery of her experiences, Amiry writes with elegance and humor about the enormous difficulty of moving from one place to another, the torture of falling in love with someone from another town, the absurdity of her dog receiving a Jerusalem identity card when thousands of Palestinians could not, and the trials of having her ninety-two-year-old mother-in-law living in her house during a forty-two-day curfew. With a wickedly sharp ear for dialogue and a keen eye for detail, Amiry gives us an original, ironic, and firsthand glimpse into the absurdity—and agony—of life in the Occupied Territories.
Story
About this book
Sharon and My Mother-in-Law draws on diaries and email correspondence that Suad Amiry kept between 1981 and 2004. The book records daily life in Ramallah, a city in the West Bank, during decades of military occupation. Amiry is an architect and writer, and her account focuses on the practical details of living under restriction: the difficulty of traveling between towns, the bureaucratic obstacles that shape ordinary tasks, and the long stretches of enforced confinement at home.
One recurring thread involves the absurdities of the permit and identity-card system. Amiry notes, for example, that her dog was issued a Jerusalem identity card at a time when thousands of Palestinian residents could not obtain one. Another section describes a forty-two-day curfew during which her ninety-two-year-old mother-in-law stayed in her house, compressing family tension and political pressure into a single domestic setting.
Throughout the book, Amiry's tone leans toward irony and dry humor rather than sentiment. She records dialogue and small incidents closely, building a picture of how occupation affects schedules, relationships, and moods in ways that are often mundane before they become unbearable. The title pairs the name of an Israeli prime minister with a family figure, linking the political and the personal from the first page.
