London Observer: (January 16): Emails from the edge

From the London Observer (Sunday supplement of the Guardian Unlimited)
Dated Sunday, January 16

Emails from the edge
A female architect's poignant and witty dispatches about living with her mother-in-law in the West Bank have become a surprise publishing success, revealing the absurdity and adversity of everyday Palestinian life
By Rachel Cooke

Somewhat to her daughter-in-law's relief, 93-year old Marie Jabaji is blissfully unaware of her new-found celebrity status. In her flat in Ramallah, where she has a view television crews and newspaper reporters alike would kill for - Mrs Jabaji's balcony directly overlooks the sombre black tomb of Yasser Arafat - the talk is all of her beloved hobby: embroidery. 'Regardez,' she says, in her ancient French, a language she must have learned during an enforced exile in Beirut. 'Les fleurs du Palestine.' She shows me some beautiful tapestries of orchids and lilies, of cornflowers and roses. Her daughter-in-law, biting on an almond sweet, laughs. 'She is very proud of her flowers,' she says. Her voice is fond, and a little bit protective.
Marie Jabaji has been a refugee for more than half her life. She left her home in Jaffa, which is on the coast of what is now Israel, in 1948, for what she thought was a holiday. Unfortunately, while she was away, the Israelis moved in, and took her house. Marie found herself homeless and stateless. At first, she remained in Beirut. A few years later, she made it to Ramallah, on the West Bank, where she has lived ever since. Unsurprisingly, she has never been able to forget her loss. 'This is how we do it in Jaffa,' she'll say, serving dinner. Under fire, her instinct is always to stay put, because who knows what will happen if she doesn't? In 2002, when the Israeli army invaded Ramallah and began reducing the compound of the PLO leader to so much rubble, it took her worried family a while to winkle Mrs Jabaji out, in spite of the tanks that were lined up in front of her house. 'Shall I bring my purple dress?' she dithered, quietly. 'Shall we take the lemons? Shall we water the plants?'

It was during this dark time - I mean this literally; the electricity lines were often cut - that the seeds of Mrs Jabaji's unlikely fame were sown. Marie went to stay with her daughter-in-law, Suad Amiry, an architect. Trapped in the house together during the long curfew hours, Marie spent her days making marmalade. Her daughter-in-law, meanwhile, began writing emails - funny, bleak emails - to her relatives and friends. She wanted them to know what life was like in a city that was effectively a giant prison. Her friends loved these emails, and began to look forward to them.

One, an Israeli, even asked if she might show them to a publisher. 'I was amazed,' says Amiry. 'I didn't really understand. I'm dyslexic. I have never thought of myself as a writer.' Soon after, however, her Ramallah diaries duly appeared between hard covers, in a Hebrew edition. Entitled Sharon and My Mother-in-Law they were a critical and commercial success.

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