The Illusion of Return

by Samir El-Youssef

I could no longer resign myself to the idea that the past was unreal. The nameless narrator of this startling novella believed himself to be under no illuson: a Palestinian refugee, he had escaped the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933633611
• ISBN13: 9781933633619
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Melville House Publishing
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Conversations in a city under siege . . .

This 150-page novella could well be transposed into a stageplay, for the action is limited chiefly to a small cast of characters sitting together in a cafe and talking. They have ideas and stories to tell, there is conflict between them, and the revelations are paced in much the same way as a drama in which we gradually come to know the crisis points in each of their lives. Set in Beirut during the occupation of Lebanon by the Israelis in the 1980s, the novel is a blend of politics and the personal, remembered in flashback by the narrator years later and in another city and another country. The narrative captures something of the anxiety felt among people living in a city under siege - where there is a high-risk mix of informers, collaborators, an occupying army, resistance fighters, and militias. It also captures nicely how people's daily lives and their relationships with one another carry on - for better or worse - despite these surroundings. Three lives are lost during the telling of the story, all casualties of political differences resulting from the collision of two people's "right of return" - the Israelis and the displaced Palestinians. For the narrator, now living in London, there is something of a resolution of his mixed feelings about the past in a story relayed to him from a Polish Jew by a friend now living in America - as they meet to talk once more, this time in a cafe at Heathrow Airport. The book takes a little patience, as it unfolds rather slowly, but the ending is worth the wait.

A rich novella of exile and isolation

The narrator of this novella is a Palestinian who emigrated from war stricken 1980s Lebanon to London, who receives a phone call from a long lost friend who has also emigrated, to the United States, and wishes to meet with him during a layover at Heathrow Airport on his way back to Lebanon. They haven't spoken to each other or returned to Lebanon after a tragic day that deeply affected both men and their families. The book's title refers not only to the narrator's belief that it is an illusion that Palestinians can return to their former homes, but also to the impossibility of accurately reexamining memories of the past. It is very well written, and the author, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, gives us a vivid portrayal of the complexity of life in wartime Lebanon, and the pain and isolation that is a daily experience of its exiles.