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Finding shared ground

01.05.08 Tom Tivnan

What is the relationship like between a Jewish publisher and Palestian author? The Bookseller talks to Profile’s Andrew Franklin and Orwell Prize winner Raja Shehadeh.

It is the day after the Orwell Prize ceremony, and Profile Books publisher and m.d. Andrew Franklin (pictured, on the right) is in buoyant mood. “Have you ever heard this before?” he asks. “An imam, a rabbi and a priest walk into a bar. The barman leans over the counter and says: ‘What is this, a joke?’ ”

He has every reason to be in good spirits. The previous night, Franklin’s author Raja Shehadeh took home Britain’s leading prize for political writing, with Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape (£9.99, 9781861978042) topping a shortlist that included William Hague and Marina Lewycka.

Shehadeh is a Palestinian lawyer and writer based in the West Bank city of Ramallah. An avid hill walker, his book is part travelogue and part political elegy, using his passion for rambling to reflect on the Israeli occupation and life in Palestine.

Franklin’s joke does not come out of the blue. As an Anglo-Jewish publisher with close ties to Israel, he acutely understands that he and Shehadeh make something of a publishing odd couple. Fresh from their Orwell win, author and publisher sit down to chat about politics, publishing and rambling in Ramallah.

Why did you decide to write about hill walking in Palestine?

Raja Shehadeh: “I have been hill walking for a long time and I always wanted to write a book like this. In fact, it started right here in this office a few years ago, when Andrew said: ‘Why don’t you do a book about walking?’ Immediately I said yes. It was like I was working on this all my life.”

Andrew Franklin: “This is the third of Raja’s books we have published. All of them are very powerful, very personal, all in the first person. They are all intensely political and all about the crisis in the Middle East, the fate of the Palestinian people and centred on his own life. There was a long discussion of what could come next, because it was important to develop Raja while remaining true to his passions and interests.

“This book, as the judges have recognised, does that completely and triumphantly; it’s an extension of, and in some ways a culmination of, what he has done before.”

Is the book overtly political, personal, or a combination of the two?

AF: “You know that great feminist slogan, ‘the personal is political’? I think in this case that is a profound statement. It is both personal and political. Once you look at the landscape you cannot fail to understand how it has changed. Anyone arriving for the first time can instantly see the difference between a settlement and an Arabic village. The settlements are perched on top of hills like citadels, they have these shiny black roads that Palestinians can’t use. They are fortified by barbed wire. Whereas the Arab villages tend to grow organically from the middle, and are based around walking.

“Even wasteland is politicised. Israeli law says that if there is wasteland then the land can be appropriated, so there are disagreements about which plants can convey ‘usage’.”

RS: “So you can’t even look at the plants and not think politically. But even living there does not mean you fully understand the situation. Writing the book helped me grasp more about geography, about how the land is being used. The land has been burdened by politics for centuries, it is not recent.”

Andrew, have you published books like this before?

AF: “I publish Israeli writers and a number of Jewish writers, but Raja was my only Palestinian author. I met him through going to the Jerusalem Book Fair, which I am very closely involved with.”

So do you think being Jewish influences what you publish?

AF: “I don’t think you can be an objective publisher. I don’t believe there is such a thing as an ideology-free political opinion. So the total make-up of every editor determines what they like. Being Jewish, identifying with Israel—I spent six months there as a teenager on a kibbutz—influences who I am and my taste.

“I have always been interested in the Middle East and that is what drew me to what in some ways is a slightly improbable book. But as a publisher you should have some notion of quality in the things that interest you. And from the start I was very interested in Raja’s work and believed in him. This is not a pro-Israeli writer, but this is a writer who is telling very important truths. I think it is really important to spread them to as many people as possible.”

What’s your stance politically on Israel, then?

AF: “I bitterly resent anyone who questions the right of Israel to exist. The legitimacy of the state of Israel is no more in question than the legitimacy of any other state that has been recognised by the UN.

“However, I am deeply, deeply critical of some Israeli policies and I believe the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are truly terrible states of affairs which undermine the long-term future and integrity of Israel. As someone who likes to think of themselves as friendly to Israel, I think they are completely damaging, they are complete wrong, it is indefensible, unsustainable and imposes extraordinary suffering.”

Can the book help with the situation, help bring about more understanding?

RS: “I wish it could. I used to think when I was younger that I would write the book that would make all the difference, but I don’t think that any more. However, I think that writing books is more important than almost anything else you can do. You can write a journal article or protest. But books can have more of an impact, or a longer-term impact.”

AF: “Unfortunately, there are only two bookshops in east Jerusalem in which you can buy Palestinian Walks. Bookselling there has a well-developed Israeli and Hebrew market, and Raja has been published before in Hebrew. But they are not likely to buy this one, because [Israeli publishers] say no Israeli can do these walks [Israeli citizens, apart from settlers and soldiers, are excluded from the West Bank].”

RS: “It is important to remember that Israel is a small and not a rich country on its own. And settlements are very expensive projects which could not exist without American money and contribution from Jewish communities in America. So publishing a book in America to get them to realise what is happening might just have a political effect.”

tom tivnan Profile Orwell Prize Andrew Franklin Prize Home Raja Shehadeh

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