Native Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life

Sayed Kashua has been praised by the New York Times as “a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society.” An Arab-Israeli who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing with the hope of creating one story that both Palestinians and Israelis could relate to, rather than two that cannot coexist together. He devoted his novels and his satirical weekly column published in Haaretz to telling the Palestinian story and exploring the contradictions of modern Israel, while also capturing the nuances of everyday family life in all its tenderness and chaos.

With an intimate tone fueled by deep-seated apprehension and razor-sharp ironic wit, Kashua has been documenting his own life as well as that of society at large: he writes about his children’s upbringing and encounters with racism, about fatherhood and married life, the Jewish-Arab conflict, his professional ambitions, travels around the world as an author, and—more than anything—his love of books and literature. He brings forth a series of brilliant, caustic, wry, and fearless reflections on social and cultural dynamics as experienced by someone who straddles two societies. Written between 2006 and 2014, Native reads like an unrestrained, profoundly thoughtful personal journal.

Sayed Kashua is a Palestinian Arab who lived in Jerusalem until July 2014; he now lives in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of three novels: DANCING ARABS (2002), LET IT BE MORNING (2004) and SECOND PERSON SINGULAR (2010). Kashua publishes a weekly column in Haaretz newspaper and is the creator and script writer of the critically acclaimed satiric television sitcom "Arab Labor." The film, DANCING ARABS, based on that novel and in part, SECOND PERSON SINGULAR, opened the Jerusalem International Film Festival in July 2014.

Kashua is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2004 Grinzane Cavour Award for First Novel 2004 (Italy), the 2005 Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel), the 2006 Lessing Prize for Critic (Germany), the 2010 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award in 2010 (USA), the 2011 Bernstein Prize (Israel) and the 2012 Prix des Lecteurs du Var (France).