Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation

Written by Colum McCann, Colm Tóibín, Dave Eggers and 3 more

Narrated by Gabra Zackman and Fred Sanders

Published to coincide the with 50th anniversary of the Israel occupation of the West Bank, an anthology that explores the human cost of the conflict there as witnessed by such notable writers as Colum McCann, Colm Toibin, Dave Eggers, Madeleine Thien, Eimear McBride, Taiye Selasi and editors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman.

June 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Israel occupation of the West Bank. The violence on both sides of the conflict has been horrific, the casualties catastrophic. Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, two of today's most renowned novelists and essayists, have joined forces with the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence—an organization comprised of former Israeli soldiers who served in the occupied territories and saw firsthand the injustice there—and a host of illustrious writers to tell the stories of the people on the ground in the contested territories.

KINGDOM OF OLIVES AND ASH includes contributions from some of our most esteemed storytellers, including essays from editors Chabon and Waldman. Their writing enables readers to understand the human narratives behind the litany of grim destruction broadcasted nightly on the news. Together they all stand witness to the human cost of the occupation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: May 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9780008229214

Colum McCann

Colum McCann is the author of seven novels, three collections of stories and two works of non-fiction. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he has been the recipient of many international honours, including the U.S National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish arts academy, several European awards, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. In 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts. His work has been published in over 40 languages. He is the President and co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4. He is the Thomas Hunter Writer in Residence in Hunter College, in New York, where he lives with his wife Allison and their family. His most recent novel, Apeirogon, became an immediate New York Times bestseller and won several major international awards. His first major non-fiction book, American Mother, will be published in February 2024. www.colummccann.com

Reviews for Kingdom of Olives and Ash

[asxz-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Predictably uneven collection of essays. I went to the Jerusalem book launch for this a few weeks ago and found myself in the audience at the Q&A yelling at Michael Chabon, one of my favourite authors and his wife. Not my finest hour. Now that I have read all the essays in this collection, I'm still a bit conflicted about the potential impact of this project. Saying that the Occupation is bad seems as redundant as saying that Trump's Presidency is bad. No one intelligent is going to argue with you. If anything some of the essays here are a little too even-handed because if the soldiers who maintain the occupation are partly victims too, then what exactly are the authors confronting? There's also a fair amount of repetition which I guess is to be expected given that some of these writers traveled together, but there are also some gems here including Assaf Gavron's piece about football and Colum McCann moving story about Combatants for peace. I went into this concerned that it might be a fruitless exercise and finished it finding it mostly toothless.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Various writers on Israel’s Occupied Territories.The writers are generally very talented, which makes the topic harder and easier to bear; they convey the pain of living under occupation, the arbitrary actions of others that control your life and make time unpredictable and endless, the way that Israel is trying to squeeze Palestinians out of the territories by squashing economic and other forms of development.