My 4th book Beyond the Wall: Writing A Path Through Palestine is being reissued with a new foreword this summer. You can pre-order it here. 

"An unflinching portrait of life in the West Bank in the 21st Century."

Andrew Kelly, The Observer

In spring 2011 I was invited to tour the West Bank in the occupied Palestinian territories as a guest of the Palestine Festival of Literature. I knew about the subject only from the headlines and casual news watching, despite a longstanding professional interest in international relations, political analysis, cultural diplomacy and human rights. I have no Muslim heritage, no Palestinian heritage and no Arab heritage. I am not an activist. 

I decided to go on the Palfest tour, keep my eyes and ears open and write down what I observed. These observations became my fourth book, Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine. It’s a very short, accessible narrative non-fiction piece about ordinary people and daily life across the West Bank, originally published by Seagull Books in May 2012. I focused on character and conversation, humour and strength, setting and community, atmosphere and daily life, with the aim of writing something relatable and universal which any reader could engage with, especially if they were coming to the topic for the first time. 

Full details of that edition plus links to reviews and related events and articles can be found here. Seagull went on to publish my fifth book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices (2015), which is based on my outreach work with asylum seekers and refugees in London. 

Over the last nineteen months I haven’t mentioned Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine in any context, online or offline, professionally or personally. I dislike it when individuals self-promote off the back of world events and am suspicious of people who push themselves to the front on a human rights ticket. Like all people in public life - especially as a journalist/chair/interviewer - I've seen countless peers speak persuasively about ethics onstage and while being hypocritical, egotistical or abusive offstage, or just insincere and on the make. I've witnessed truly terrible human beings performatively putting their signatures to the petitions and statements of the day, just to look good in public. I figured that anyone who was interested in this issue would do an Amazon search and buy the top five or six books that came up, that appealed to them. If mine was included, great. If not - I am not in competition with others.

In late 2024 I contacted Seagull to ask if I could write a new foreword for Beyond The Wall. They kindly agreed and the essay is as current as we could make it while still allowing for 8 weeks' production time. It clearly expresses my feelings. 

Seagull's page for the book is here. I am grateful to anyone who read Beyond the Wall in 2012 and will be grateful to anyone who reads the new 2025 edition. 

The new edition of Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine can be bought here. It's currently on pre-order and will be published in the summer.I will not be taking up any media or event slots to comment on this when there is so much direct footage and reportage already, including testimonies by those who are directly affected. I’d like to thank Naveen Kishore and Bishan Samadder at Seagull.