From today's Observer, a review of Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries by Suad Amiry
'Marie Jabaji has been a refugee for more than half her life. She left her home in Jaffa, which is on the coast of what is now Israel, in 1948, for what she thought was a holiday. Unfortunately, while she was away, the Israelis moved in, and took her house. Marie found herself homeless and stateless. At first, she remained in Beirut. A few years later, she made it to Ramallah, on the West Bank, where she has lived ever since. Unsurprisingly, she has never been able to forget her loss. 'This is how we do it in Jaffa,' she'll say, serving dinner. Under fire, her instinct is always to stay put, because who knows what will happen if she doesn't? In 2002, when the Israeli army invaded Ramallah and began reducing the compound of the PLO leader to so much rubble, it took her worried family a while to winkle Mrs Jabaji out, in spite of the tanks that were lined up in front of her house. 'Shall I bring my purple dress?' she dithered, quietly. 'Shall we take the lemons? Shall we water the plants?'
It was during this dark time - I mean this literally; the electricity lines were often cut - that the seeds of Mrs Jabaji's unlikely fame were sown. Marie went to stay with her daughter-in-law, Suad Amiry, an architect. Trapped in the house together during the long curfew hours, Marie spent her days making marmalade. Her daughter-in-law, meanwhile, began writing emails - funny, bleak emails - to her relatives and friends. She wanted them to know what life was like in a city that was effectively a giant prison. Her friends loved these emails, and began to look forward to them. '