My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness

A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century

Hoffman Adina

Beautifully written, and composed with a novelist's eye for detail, this book tells the story of an exceptional man and the culture from which he emerged. Taha Muhammad Ali was born in 1931 in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya and was forced to flee during the war in 1948. He traveled on foot to Lebanon and returned a year later to find his village destroyed. An autodidact, he has since run a souvenir shop in Nazareth, at the same time evolving into what one leading American critic has dubbed "perhaps the most accessible and delightful poet alive today". As it places Muhammad Ali's life in the context of the lives of his predecessors and peers, "My Happiness" offers a sweeping depiction of a charged and fateful epoch. It is a work that Arabic scholar Michael Sells describes as "among the five 'must read' books on the Israel-Palestine tragedy". In an era when talk of the "Clash of Civilizations" dominates, this biography offers something else entirely: a view of the people and culture of the Middle East that is rich, nuanced, and above all else, deeply human.

About the Author

Adina Hoffman is an award-winning essayist and biographer. The author of four books, including "Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City" and "My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century", she lives in Jerusalem and New Haven.

Reviews

*WINNER OF THE 2010 JEWISH QUARTERLY WINGATE PRIZE*

"A remarkable book... A triumph of personal empathy and historical insight, and a beacon for anyone who knows that 'more joins than separates us'" – Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

"A rich tapestry of the personal, the literary and the political, skillfully woven by a sympathetic writer... Hoffman's intense but often humorous book is a powerful reminder of the singularity and complexity of this most intractable of conflicts and of the ability of the human spirit to be creative in adversity" – Ian Black, The Guardian

"Veering between biography, history, journalism and memoir, this painstakingly researched work is a human-scale picture of the... under-reported history of the Palestinians in Israel as well as an accessible introduction to their poetry... Hoffman's book is unpretentious, principled and... charming" – The Economist

"Beautifully written... In tracing [Muhammad Ali's] life... Hoffman manages to illuminate the experience of an entire people. She is scrupulously even-handed... [This] is not only the biography of a remarkable man; it is an act of reclamation against the erosions of memory" – Eric Ormsby, Times Literary Supplement

"Reading Adina Hoffman's remarkable book we are consoled that, in the face of terrible brutalities and sufferings, the enduring power of poetry might restore in words – and celebrate – a measure of what has been lost in reality" – Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

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