Miriam's legacy

Patricia Rantisi

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Why I wrote this book

Miriam's Legacy was written to convey the loss of heritage of the Palestinian people and the unsolved refugee problem in the context of a fictional human family spanning three generations.

Synopsis

This is a historical novel about Palestine. The characters are fictitious, but the dates, locations and historical events are real. The story begins in the Shatila Refugee Camp in Lebanon in 1982, the year of the massacre. The main character is a schoolboy, Farres, to whom his great-grandmother, Miriam, hands over a string of ‘worry’ beads to remind him of Palestine, just before she dies.

The story then reverts to life in a village of Northern Palestine, not far from the city of Haifa, where Miriam lives as a young girl. Alternate chapters unfold the life of Miriam in the early 1900s culminating with her exile into Lebanon in 1948. At the same time it unfolds the life of Farres, growing up in a refugee camp but with dreams of becoming a doctor and of one day seeing the land of his forefathers.

Reviews

Warren R. Bardsley: "This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel. 1948 is also the year that Palestinians commemorate as the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe) when thousands of women men and children were either massacred or driven from their towns and villages by Zionist armed forces to become refugees in Lebanon and inside Palestine itself. Patricia Rantisi’s novel, based on historical facts, covers a period of almost a century and could not be more timely. The story, told through the prism of four generations of one family, begins in 1982 in the refugee camp at Shatila, southern Lebanon when hundreds of Palestinians were attacked and murdered by Lebanese militias as Israeli soldiers stood by and watched. We are introduced to the storyteller Farres, the great-grandson of Miriam, whose legacy consists of a brooch and a string of glass worry beads in an old shoebox, the token of a much richer legacy. We are taken back in time to northern Palestine, during the dying days of the Ottoman empire, to a village where Miriam is growing up, eventually marrying Amin and raising their family. Both are Muslims but it is a time when Jews, Christians and Muslims live and work together in relative peace and harmony, illustrated by the close friendship between Amin, Miriam and Majida and Yousif who are Christians. But storm clouds are gathering; the events of 1948 are described in graphic detail, the incursion of Zionist forces into Haifa and northern Palestine, the forced evacuation of the indigenous population to southern Lebanon and into the refugee camp which becomes home for Amin, Miriam and their family. Farres is caught up in the violence of Shatila during the 1980’s and finds himself in hospital, rescued by Tom, a British doctor. He is encouraged by Tom to pursue a medical career, and travels to London, eventually qualifying as a doctor. He meets and marries Kate a journalist, who it turns out is the daughter of a Muslim Palestinian and an Irish mother! We see Farres and Kate returning to visit Palestine with their young daughter named Miriam after Farres’ great-grandmother. He is briefly and emotionally united with his family whom he hasn’t seen for many years, but it is a sign of the continuing tragedy of modern Palestine that their re-union must be celebrated across barbed wire. The story concludes with Farres pledging through tears to dedicate his medical skills to bring hope to the suffering people of the West Bank. Here is Miriam’s true legacy. This is very much a story for our times, movingly and brilliantly told by Patricia Rantisi, now retired to Shrewsbury. She and her Palestinian husband Audeh, (to whom the book is dedicated), worked with disadvantaged children in Ramallah for thirty years. 2008 commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights. Those who want to know the reality and roots of one of the most persistent violations of those rights during that period would do well to read this book."

About the Author

Patricia Rantisi was born and educated in England but has spent the best part of her life abroad. She lived in Lamas, Peru, South America from 1958 to 1965 until her marriage. Then she lived in Ramallah, occupied Palestinian Territory from 1965 to 2002. She has authored the Revised Version of her late husband’s autobiography (Rev. Audeh Rantisi) named ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’, which was published by Eagle Press in 2003. Patricia has published many articles about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and in 2005 she won the Better Book Company Synopsis Competition for this book. Miriam’s Legacy is her first novel. She is currently writing her second novel ‘’My name is Musa’, due for completion in 2008.

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