Tank under the Christmas tree

Author's name: Ibrahim Nasrallah

The novel "Tank Under the Christmas Tree" by poet and novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah, which began preparation in 1990, reflects on the state of Palestine over a period of 75 years, starting with World War I and ending with the end of the First Palestinian Intifada, tracing the transformations that Palestine has experienced. A novel of generations, its events take place in Beit Sahour, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and other Palestinian cities. As much as it is a novel about the Palestinian city that draws from the history of the homeland, it is also an extraordinary love story, a novel about music, singing, art and culture, and the vanguard role of the Palestinian people, humanely, in struggle, and aesthetically, and the Christian role in the Palestinian struggle and its various manifestations, and the great achievement achieved by the city of Beit Sahour through its creative civil disobedience during the First Intifada. This novel of generations also presents, through its unforgettable characters, the methods used by Zionism to control Palestine. This epic work, which is an extension of (The Palestinian Comedy), embraces the broader novel project “The Bells Trilogy” and includes three novels: (Shadows of the Keys), (The Biography of an Eye) and (Tank Under the Christmas Tree), and through it Ibrahim Nasrallah confirms a remarkable ability to renew, give, and explore new areas, historically and humanly.