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Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground
From the bestselling author of the Booker Prize finalist The Map of Love –an incisive collection of essays on Arab identity, art, and politics that seeks to locate the mezzaterra, or common ground, in an increasingly globalized world.
The twenty-five years’ worth of criticism and commentary collected here have earned Ahdaf Soueif a place among our most prominent Arab intellectuals. Clear-eyed and passionate, and syndicated throughout the world, they are the direct result of Soueif’s own circumstances of being “like hundreds of thousands of people with an Arab or a Muslim background doing daily double-takes when faced with their reflection in a western mirror.” Whether an account of visiting Palestine and entering the Noble Sanctuary for the first time, an interpretation of women who choose to wear the veil, or her post—September 11 reflections, Soueif’s intelligent, fearless, deeply informed essays embody the modern search for identity and community.
The twenty-five years’ worth of criticism and commentary collected here have earned Ahdaf Soueif a place among our most prominent Arab intellectuals. Clear-eyed and passionate, and syndicated throughout the world, they are the direct result of Soueif’s own circumstances of being “like hundreds of thousands of people with an Arab or a Muslim background doing daily double-takes when faced with their reflection in a western mirror.” Whether an account of visiting Palestine and entering the Noble Sanctuary for the first time, an interpretation of women who choose to wear the veil, or her post—September 11 reflections, Soueif’s intelligent, fearless, deeply informed essays embody the modern search for identity and community.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
11 people are currently reading
373 people want to read
About the author
Ahdaf Soueif
32 books1,307 followersAhdaf Soueif (Arabic: أهداف سويف) is an Egyptian short story writer, novelist and political and cultural commentator. She was educated in Egypt and England - studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster.
Her novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and subsequently translated into 21 languages. Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. Along with in-depth and sensitive readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004). Soueif has also translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English.
In 2007, Soueif was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate."
In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest). Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for the Guardian newspaper and she has been reporting on the Egyptian revolution. In January 2012 she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution
Her novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and subsequently translated into 21 languages. Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. Along with in-depth and sensitive readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004). Soueif has also translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English.
In 2007, Soueif was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate."
In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest). Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for the Guardian newspaper and she has been reporting on the Egyptian revolution. In January 2012 she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 9, 2014
Globalisation is driven by economics, ideology and communications. Surely that is the path to constant conflict, to grief and misery. There is another way: to inhabit and broaden the common ground. This is the ground where everybody is welcome, the ground we need to defend and to expand. It is in Mezzaterra that every responsible person on this planet now needs to pitch their tent. This is the ground from which this book is calling.
The way forward for mankind is to find that common ground - mezza terra in Italian - instead of focusing on the differences between us. The author of this book came from Egypt to live in London - a city which is so multi cultural that it's not like the rest of England. But she didn't recognise the version of her people that she saw reflected through Western eyes.
"They don't want you to understand your enemy. Because the minute you understand them they will no longer be your enemy. "
I can't remember who said that. Maybe it was my friend Nadja. Or her brother Khaled. But they were so right. I was fascinated by the other world that Nadja allowed me a glimpse of and years later I ended up in Istanbul because of that association. She had opened my eyes.
Perhaps if more people travelled beyond their comfort zone the world would be a kinder place.
Ahdaf Soueif is a natural successor and inheritor of the mantle of her mentor the late Edward Said.
The way forward for mankind is to find that common ground - mezza terra in Italian - instead of focusing on the differences between us. The author of this book came from Egypt to live in London - a city which is so multi cultural that it's not like the rest of England. But she didn't recognise the version of her people that she saw reflected through Western eyes.
"They don't want you to understand your enemy. Because the minute you understand them they will no longer be your enemy. "
I can't remember who said that. Maybe it was my friend Nadja. Or her brother Khaled. But they were so right. I was fascinated by the other world that Nadja allowed me a glimpse of and years later I ended up in Istanbul because of that association. She had opened my eyes.
Perhaps if more people travelled beyond their comfort zone the world would be a kinder place.
Ahdaf Soueif is a natural successor and inheritor of the mantle of her mentor the late Edward Said.
October 9, 2010
Mezzaterra was one of those impulse buys - I wasn't familiar with the author until then and I also happened to pick it up without researching the book here on GR. So of course, it came as a pleasant surprise when I discovered that Soueif is not only a "prominent Arab intellectual" and author but that I loved her distinctive style of writing.
Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground is a collection of essays on politics, literature, and culture written by Soueif over a period of 25 years and published in many newspapers. This collection offers a lot, from scathing book reviews to a moving account of her journey into Palestine, all of it narrarted in refreshingly candid and elegant prose.
Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground is a collection of essays on politics, literature, and culture written by Soueif over a period of 25 years and published in many newspapers. This collection offers a lot, from scathing book reviews to a moving account of her journey into Palestine, all of it narrarted in refreshingly candid and elegant prose.
September 6, 2012
balanced, personal at times, essays about the middle ground mezzaterra, where an Egyptian intellectual living in Britain and travelling the world finds herself, not always a nice place, but one used by Ahdaf Soueif to pull others onto that mezzaterra and look from there towards both sides, east and west and learn from both.
October 27, 2012
I enjoyed the political essays and a few of the book reviews but felt the combination was awkward. Her essay "Contagious Exchanges" is one of the clearest descriptions I've read of the affect America's support of Israel has on its relationship with other Middle Eastern countries. Throughout her essays, she brings to light aspects of the Middle East that you don't often (or ever) see discussed in Western media.
June 4, 2019
Part I "This is Israel, I do what I like. I can shoot you. Here I do what I like"
"This isn't Israel. This is the West Bank"
"West Bank? What is the West Bank?" the soldier turns to his friend questioningly.
ーMezzaterra, Fragment From the Common Ground by Ahdaf Soueif
What I'd read in Mezzaterra was exactly the same scenes on what I'd read in Ghassan Kanafani's Palestine's Children only the different was Palestine's Children is a collection of short stories but Mezzaterra is the real stories. Both books enlighted me deeper to understand the situation between Palestine, Israel and the world. The insights written by the native writers gave me a new horizon to look into the situation. I love the boldness and bravery of Soueif, the coolest woman journalist.
The first half of Mezzaterra is mainly a collection of political essays and news articles focus on investigative jounalist, Western media, Palestine-Israel conflict and American policy, which is my most favourite part of the book. Souief went to the ground in Palestine and Israel to interview their residences. I knew that I would have to witness again the injustice that Israelis have been treating Palestinians, but this reading shocked me even more. In this ground interview shows that Israelis made a habit of picking quareels, beating even the children, urinate in water tank, thow tear gas and intentionally kill Palestine surveillance. The Israeli military in every checkpoints hummiliate and threat to kill Palestinians. There is "Isarael-only road". They close the border so that the Palestinian farmers couldn't go to their own farm to havest the crops, no food. They close the border so Palestinians couldn't go to pray in the mosque (just yesterday al-Jazeera reported that Israeli military and ultra-nationalist Jews attacked and thew gas in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the last days of Ramadan). While the interview with Palestinian residences are inhumanly terrified, Souief questions that aren't there a good Isareli at all? And yes, there are, few. Also, there's differece between Israelis, Jews, and Zionists. This book shows the perspectives on both sides. I am very cautious when reading this book becasue it's the mix of the writer's opinion. But the interview and the evidence reveal their own truth. "Hense Israel has talked peace but build settlement"
Here are some of the brutal learning from this book.
•Ariel Sharon's army shoots at ambulances and bulldozes houses down on top of pregnant women. 51 Palestinian women have to give birth at the checkpoints. 29 of these 51 babies died.
•In Palestine America defined itself as the 'honest broker' between Palestinians and Israelis and proceeded to place matters in the hands of US Special Envoys, most every one of whom was graduate of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee)
•If the world allows Israel to steal the West Bank and Jerusalem and to deny the history of the people it dispossessed in 1948 and 1967 then the world will have admitted it is a lawless place and the world will suffer the consequences of this admission.
•The first symtom of barbarisation of thought is the corruption of lanuage. The media has a clear duty here. But when watching BBC, CNN and even Hollywood on the one hand and al-Jazeera on the other was like seeing reports from two differnt planets.
"Think of the occupied territories of Palestine today- then spread that vision across the world. It will take a library of novels to do justice to the American, Arab, British and Israeli-the millions-the fragmented grobal cimmunity of broken hearts"ーAhdaf Soueif
Part II
I have to confess that I wasn't a very good reader in part 2 because I read too fast and was too anxious to finish it to wrap up the rest of my fermented-current-readings. But I managed to stop, read twice, pause and think about the issues that I'm interested especially the essays on Muslim women in Iran, Egypt, Palestine and some bit of Arab identities. (still having an ongoing discussion with my hijabi friend on this) There's some fragment of political comments here and there in the literary essays point out to the West and a dangerous dependency on the Middle East oil. In part two of this book was mainly the collection of essays on Arab identity, literature, art, culture, and a lot of literary critique on books written by both Arab writers and Western writers who write about Arab and Palestine.
I discovered two extremely important writers that I'm eager to explore especially their books on Palestine. A Palestinian American born in Mandatory Palestine, a professor of literature at Columbia University, Edward W. Said. And the French writer, Jean Genet.
The last two essays on this book were probably the one I concentrated the most because it was the discussion and dialogue between Palestinian writers and Israeli writers. Here are some writers that included in this book. (I put the nationality of the writers for my own reference)
William Golding, British
Diana Athill, British
Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian
Jehan Sadat, widow of Anwar Sadat, former First Lady of Egypt
Diane Johnson, American
Deborah Moggach, British
Jayne Anne Phillips, American
Oriana Fallaci, Italian
Susan Faludi, American
Marilyn French, America
Amitav Ghosh, Indian
Sattareh Farman Farmaian, Iranian
Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan
Jan Goodwin, American(?)
Cherry Mosteshar, Iranian(?)
Nur and Abdel Wahab Elmessiri, Egyptian
Susan Brind Morrow, American
Christine El Mahdy, British
Philip Hensher, British
Gilles Kepel, French
• Palestinian writers/poets
Liana Badr
Adania Shibli
Hassan Khader
Fadwa Tuqan
Mourid Barghouti
• Israeli writers/poets
David Grossman
Aharon Applefield
Yehuda Amichai
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
A.B.Yehoshua
Amos Oz
Yizhar Smilansky
That's it everybody! Read cautiously and mind openly!
"This isn't Israel. This is the West Bank"
"West Bank? What is the West Bank?" the soldier turns to his friend questioningly.
ーMezzaterra, Fragment From the Common Ground by Ahdaf Soueif
What I'd read in Mezzaterra was exactly the same scenes on what I'd read in Ghassan Kanafani's Palestine's Children only the different was Palestine's Children is a collection of short stories but Mezzaterra is the real stories. Both books enlighted me deeper to understand the situation between Palestine, Israel and the world. The insights written by the native writers gave me a new horizon to look into the situation. I love the boldness and bravery of Soueif, the coolest woman journalist.
The first half of Mezzaterra is mainly a collection of political essays and news articles focus on investigative jounalist, Western media, Palestine-Israel conflict and American policy, which is my most favourite part of the book. Souief went to the ground in Palestine and Israel to interview their residences. I knew that I would have to witness again the injustice that Israelis have been treating Palestinians, but this reading shocked me even more. In this ground interview shows that Israelis made a habit of picking quareels, beating even the children, urinate in water tank, thow tear gas and intentionally kill Palestine surveillance. The Israeli military in every checkpoints hummiliate and threat to kill Palestinians. There is "Isarael-only road". They close the border so that the Palestinian farmers couldn't go to their own farm to havest the crops, no food. They close the border so Palestinians couldn't go to pray in the mosque (just yesterday al-Jazeera reported that Israeli military and ultra-nationalist Jews attacked and thew gas in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the last days of Ramadan). While the interview with Palestinian residences are inhumanly terrified, Souief questions that aren't there a good Isareli at all? And yes, there are, few. Also, there's differece between Israelis, Jews, and Zionists. This book shows the perspectives on both sides. I am very cautious when reading this book becasue it's the mix of the writer's opinion. But the interview and the evidence reveal their own truth. "Hense Israel has talked peace but build settlement"
Here are some of the brutal learning from this book.
•Ariel Sharon's army shoots at ambulances and bulldozes houses down on top of pregnant women. 51 Palestinian women have to give birth at the checkpoints. 29 of these 51 babies died.
•In Palestine America defined itself as the 'honest broker' between Palestinians and Israelis and proceeded to place matters in the hands of US Special Envoys, most every one of whom was graduate of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee)
•If the world allows Israel to steal the West Bank and Jerusalem and to deny the history of the people it dispossessed in 1948 and 1967 then the world will have admitted it is a lawless place and the world will suffer the consequences of this admission.
•The first symtom of barbarisation of thought is the corruption of lanuage. The media has a clear duty here. But when watching BBC, CNN and even Hollywood on the one hand and al-Jazeera on the other was like seeing reports from two differnt planets.
"Think of the occupied territories of Palestine today- then spread that vision across the world. It will take a library of novels to do justice to the American, Arab, British and Israeli-the millions-the fragmented grobal cimmunity of broken hearts"ーAhdaf Soueif
Part II
I have to confess that I wasn't a very good reader in part 2 because I read too fast and was too anxious to finish it to wrap up the rest of my fermented-current-readings. But I managed to stop, read twice, pause and think about the issues that I'm interested especially the essays on Muslim women in Iran, Egypt, Palestine and some bit of Arab identities. (still having an ongoing discussion with my hijabi friend on this) There's some fragment of political comments here and there in the literary essays point out to the West and a dangerous dependency on the Middle East oil. In part two of this book was mainly the collection of essays on Arab identity, literature, art, culture, and a lot of literary critique on books written by both Arab writers and Western writers who write about Arab and Palestine.
I discovered two extremely important writers that I'm eager to explore especially their books on Palestine. A Palestinian American born in Mandatory Palestine, a professor of literature at Columbia University, Edward W. Said. And the French writer, Jean Genet.
The last two essays on this book were probably the one I concentrated the most because it was the discussion and dialogue between Palestinian writers and Israeli writers. Here are some writers that included in this book. (I put the nationality of the writers for my own reference)
William Golding, British
Diana Athill, British
Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian
Jehan Sadat, widow of Anwar Sadat, former First Lady of Egypt
Diane Johnson, American
Deborah Moggach, British
Jayne Anne Phillips, American
Oriana Fallaci, Italian
Susan Faludi, American
Marilyn French, America
Amitav Ghosh, Indian
Sattareh Farman Farmaian, Iranian
Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan
Jan Goodwin, American(?)
Cherry Mosteshar, Iranian(?)
Nur and Abdel Wahab Elmessiri, Egyptian
Susan Brind Morrow, American
Christine El Mahdy, British
Philip Hensher, British
Gilles Kepel, French
• Palestinian writers/poets
Liana Badr
Adania Shibli
Hassan Khader
Fadwa Tuqan
Mourid Barghouti
• Israeli writers/poets
David Grossman
Aharon Applefield
Yehuda Amichai
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
A.B.Yehoshua
Amos Oz
Yizhar Smilansky
That's it everybody! Read cautiously and mind openly!
January 16, 2015
i expected more specially after the 1st chapter but it got surprisingly dull, boring and complicated.
some of the essays were childish to me, if she wanted to dish on "jihan al sadat" she could have done more effort than 5 useless pages that made no sense & carried no evidence!! immature
the other essays were quite passable, but she was more focused on using "BIG" words than using the "RIGHT" words... again... immature
overall, it showed prospect of a good political analysis and personal views of an Egyptian immigrant, but it turned into a waste of time after the 1st 50 pages.
some of the essays were childish to me, if she wanted to dish on "jihan al sadat" she could have done more effort than 5 useless pages that made no sense & carried no evidence!! immature
the other essays were quite passable, but she was more focused on using "BIG" words than using the "RIGHT" words... again... immature
overall, it showed prospect of a good political analysis and personal views of an Egyptian immigrant, but it turned into a waste of time after the 1st 50 pages.
January 16, 2024
Somehow I had never heard of Soueif before reading this book, but I’m glad I picked it up. Sadly, we seem further away from her hopeful notion of mezzaterra (common ground) than when this was written, but her written contributions to this goal remain inspiring. Here you will find many types of writing - memoir, book reviews, travelogue, war journalism, and an extremely moving eulogy to Edward Said, all of which skillfully connect the personal to the literary and the political. Definitely worth your time.
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December 21, 2007a journal that is more independant or neutral about Palestinians and Israelis' lives .. it s rather sad and sometimes boring .. but overal good read to get better informed about the most complicated issue in the Middle East's and World's history!
February 12, 2013
some of the cultural articles were ok...and some of the political commentaries. everything is a bit self centered...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews