Shifting Sands

Shifting Sands brings together fifteen impassioned and informed writers to talk about the Middle East, in discussions ranging from Arab countries in crisis to the dilemmas facing Iran and Tureky. This is a region with unlimited potential and yet, in the words of one writer, it feels today "as though the world around me is on fire". Revealing how the roots of the current conflict lie in the past, from the catastrophic long-term effects of colonialism to the interplay of religion and politics, the books also explores more recent events, such as the seismic after-effects of the Arab Spring and the rise of Islamic State. And it goes on to explore a number of important questions:What is it like to be a writer in the Middle East? What hope does the future hold? Where do we go from here?

For all those who are wearied by the debates surrounding the Middle East – often at best ill-informed and at worst dreary propaganda – these intelligent, reasoned perspectives are a breath of fresh air.

Raja Shehadeh is a writer and lawyer. His books include Strangers in the House (2002), When the Bulbul Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege (2003), Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape (200/), for which he won the 2008 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, and A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle (2010). Shehadeh, who lives in Ramallah, is a founder of the pioneering human rights organisation Al Haq, an affiliate of the International commission of Jurists. His most recent book is Language of War, Language of Peace: Palestine, Israel and the Search for Justice (2015).

Penny Johnson is an associate editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly (Institute of Palestine Studies). She began working at Birzeit University, Palestine, in 1982 for the university's human rights and prisoners committee and was a founding member of the university's Institute of Women's Studies, writing on Palestinian women, family and social relations in Palestinian society. With Raja Shehadeh, she edited Seeking Palestine: New Palestinan Writing on Exile and Home (2013), which won the 2013 Palestine Book Award.

Contributions from Avi Shlaim, James Barr, Salim Tamari, Khaled Fahmy, Tamim Barghouti, Justin Marozzi, Ramita Navai, Alev Scott, Mai Al-Nakib, Selma Dabbagh, Marilyn Booth, Dawn Chatty, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Malu Halasa, Raja Shehadeh.