Suad Amiry | Granta

Suad Amiry

Suad Amiry is an author and architect. She is the founder and director of the Riwaq: The Center for Architectural Conservation in Ramallah. After growing up between Amman, Damascus, Beirut and Cairo, she went on to study architecture in Beirut, Michigan and Edinburgh. She won the prestigious Viareggio-Versilia Prize in 2004. Sharon and My Mother-in-Law was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award for Reportage and has been translated into eleven languages. She now lives in Ramallah.

Publications

Sharon And My Mother-In-Law

Suad Amiry

A blackly funny account of everyday life in Ramallah and refreshingly different from most writing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law describes Suad Amiry’s life on the West Bank from the early 1980s to the first decade of the new millennium. Vividly evoking her neighbourhood and her moving family history, Amiry creates a fascinating account of her attempts to live a normal life in an insane situation: from the impossibility of acquiring gas masks during the first Gulf War to her dog acquiring a Jerusalem passport when thousands of Palestinians couldn’t. During the Israeli invasion of Ramallah in March 2002, Amiry’s feisty ninety-two-year-old mother-in-law came to live with them, and Amiry’s diary of this time is at the heart of this wonderful book about the absurdity (and agony) of life in the Occupied Territories.