A Treaty of Love

By Samir El-Youssef

For the first time in six years, Ibrahim enjoys a breakfast of tomatoes, onions and pita bread, while his girlfriend Ruth takes a parcel to the local post office. As he waits for her return, he reflects on the events of the previous few days and then of the past few years.

He is Palestinian, she Israeli and they live in London, a city they explore and grow to love. They delight in living against the political tide and in confounding people’s assumptions. But, as the situation in the Middle East deteriorates, so it inevitably impinges on their life together and they struggle to maintain their relationship. It is the family secret that Ibrahim finally reveals that threatens to engulf them forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Halban
• Release date: Jan 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912600021

Samir El-Youssef

Samir El-Youssef, a Palestinian, was born in Rashidia, a refugee camp in Lebanon. His collection of stories, Gaza Blues, co-authored with the Israeli writer Etgar Keret, received wide acclaim and has been translated into several languages. His essays and reviews have appeared in various publications including Guardian, Al-Hayat, New Statesman, Nizwa, Jewish Quarterly and The Washington Post, amongst others. Samir El-Youssef is also a peace campaigner and in 2005 won the Tucholsky Award for promoting the cause of peace and freedom of speech in the Middle East.

Reviews for A Treaty of Love

[gmillar_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think I've noticed a change in the timbre of 21st Century novelists' subject matter. These writers appear to be hell-bent on wrenching their guts out by taking themselves on a guilt trip and making us readers feel guilty. Guilty about what ? Guilty about being alive in this century when more and more people are culturally intolerant, or at least culturally uninformed.This story is a written down "stream of thought" that uses simple language to share anything-but-simple cultural emotions. It uses as a vehicle, the a cohabitation of a Palestinian male and an Israeli female to tell us how the male actually thinks. This man has been brought up in refugee area in Lebanon, lost his brother to a killing, lost his female cousin to a killing and lost his uncle to a disappearance. This is not a fundamentalist treatise on Islam or Jewishness - it is a prognostication of what sort of thoughts a Palestinian man might have if he is not a fundamentalist, or if he thinks he isn't.I'm glad I read it but I'm very glad I can move on now to a Michener novel, a Farnol romance or a Spillane thriller.