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Lost in the long shadow of the father

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father And I
by Raja Shehadeh
Profile Books £14.99

PALESTINIAN writer Raja Shehadeh and his father Aziz, a prominent lawyer with a long and distinguished career, spent years defending Palestinian rights and advocating for statehood as the Israeli occupation gradually tightened its grip over their land.

Both men sometimes held different and even conflicting views on how their dream of a Palestinian state could be realised.

Raja would feel his ideas rebuffed by his renowned father’s criticism and tried to carve out a career of his own uneclipsed by the latter’s achievements.

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