A resolute, heart-rending story of real change and possibility in the Palestinian-Israeli impasse.
Musicians who play together break down the barriers separating them.
Veteran journalist Tolan (Communication and Journalism/Univ. of Southern California; The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, 2006, etc.) finds in the determined career of a Palestinian musician a chance for enduring harmony between Palestinians and Israelis. The poster boy for the First Intifada (1987-1993)—literally; a 1987 photograph of him as a young boy hurling stones at Israeli soldiers from his refugee camp became an iconic international image—Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan was a “child of the stones” growing up near Ramallah, West Bank, under the thumb of Israeli occupation. His mother abandoned him when he was 5, and Palestinian gangs murdered his father in 1990 due to his suspected collaboration with the Israelis. Raised by his grandfather, Ramzi absorbed the collective hatred and despair harbored by the Palestinians against their Israeli enforcers. After the Oslo Accord of 1993, many long-exiled Palestinians were allowed to return to the West Bank and Gaza, including a violinist trained in musical therapy, Mohammad Fadel, who started the Palestine National Conservatory of Music as part of an effort to infuse new life into Palestinian cultural institutions. Ramzi was chosen to play the viola, and he won a “playing for peace” scholarship to study in America and France. Eventually, he was swept into a grand friendship project between Palestinian-American literary scholar Edward Said and Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim in the form of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, based in Seville, Spain, that would promote peace through an Arab-Jewish musical partnership. Ramzi also started his own association in the West Bank, finding ways to support young Palestinian musicians while also making a political stand against Israeli occupation.
A resolute, heart-rending story of real change and possibility in the Palestinian-Israeli impasse.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4088-5304-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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