Born a Refugee

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Reeking of tear gas, Ali darts into an alley, listening for the thud of combat boots behind him. Coming of age in a refugee camp isn't easy. Politics is a way of life...and death. You grow up fast—if you're lucky enough to live that long.
The haunting yet beautiful story of a family of four brothers and their widowed mother living in a tiny house in the Kalandia Refugee Camp near Jerusalem as they face the struggle and hope of their daily lives.  Gripping, well-written, and engaging, Born a Refugee is a powerful look at Palestinian life.
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
This is a deep, rich, poignant and profoundly humanistic book. It is also one of the best “political” books I have ever read.
   The central thesis, a family that could be any one’s neighbours anywhere on Earth, except that they are struggling against the crush of a “foreign” military occupation, living between Jerusalem and Ramallah, is brilliantly constructed.
   Whilst telling one extended family’s story Hallaj very cleverly keeps the reader linked to the massive historical waves convulsing the nowadays lands of Abraham. The chosen device, the start of chapter historic, headline, quote, works very well.
   Hallaj is a very good reader of people. Her characters are totally believable, and her understanding of the issues facing stateless people walking their own ancestors’ lands seems to an outsider to be sharp and profound. Politicians who really care for the pursuit of peace should read this book, whatever side of the wicked divide birth or conviction puts them on.
​ (Review by Richard Bunning)