Promotional Information

The true story of a friendship spanning religious divisions and four decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict

About the Author

Sandy Tolan is a journalist, teacher and documentary radio producer and has reported from more than 30 countries, particularly in the Middle East. He has produced dozens of radio documentaries and has written for newspapers and magazines including the New York Times and USA Today. He now teaches international reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.

Reviews

At a time when peace seems remote and darkness deepens, this lucid, humane, hopeful book shines like a ray of light
*The Times*

A superb, sustained piece of narrative non-fiction
*The Sunday Times*

Extraordinary... Tolan's narrative provides a much needed human dimension to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... a highly readable and evocative history
*Washington Post*

Reads like a novel... an informed take for anyone interested in the human stories behind a conflict
*New Statesman*

A fascinating and highly absorbing account full of warmth, compassion and hope
*Scotland on Sunday*

As they follow Dalia and Bashir's difficult friendship, readers will experience one of the world's most stubborn conflicts firsthand
*Publishers Weekly*

Masterly and brilliantly researched... If it were fiction, critics would no doubt hail the epic, almost Tolstoyan quality of this book
*Morning Star*

A much-needed antidote to the cynicism of realpolitik
*Booklist*

Affecting. Sensitively told. Humane and literate - and rather daring in suggesting that the future of the Middle East need not be violent
*Kirkus Reviews (starred review)*

The inspiring lives of two unique people, and Tolan's compassion in narrating them, illuminate the tragedy of Palestine in the most moving and revealing way
*Karma Nabulsi, Prize Research Fellow, Oxford University*

The title of this moving, well-crafted book refers to a tree in the backyard of a home in Ramla, Israel. The home is currently owned by Dalia, a Jewish woman whose family of Holocaust survivors emigrated from Bulgaria. But before Israel gained its independence in 1948, the house was owned by the Palestinian family of Bashir, who meets Dalia when he returns to see his family home after the Six-Day War of 1967. Journalist Tolan (Me & Hank) traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the parallel personal histories of Dalia and Bashir and their families-all refugees seeking a home. As Tolan takes the story forward, Dalia struggles with her Israeli identity, and Bashir struggles with decades in Israeli prisons for suspected terrorist activities. Those looking for even a symbolic magical solution to that conflict won't find it here: the lemon tree dies in 1998, just as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stagnates. But as they follow Dalia and Bashir's difficult friendship, readers will experience one of the world's most stubborn conflicts firsthand. 2 maps. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.