The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem

Author's name: Osama Al-Aissa

It is a novel celebrating place and characters, in a city of textual and fatalistic meaning. But it is also a revision of assumptions, slogans, and even the early act of self-sacrifice, which, despite the enormity and sublimity of the sacrifices, and the cultural references of the freedom fighters, did not lead to the liberation of the city, its stones and its people. And about the early realization that Jerusalem, besieged by patriotic songs, popular slogans, and official statements, is not the Jerusalem of the people who have always had to pay the price. Nor is it the religious Jerusalem that has besieged itself within about a square kilometer within the wall for centuries, despite suffering from wounds that will never heal, from one occupier to another, from one conqueror to another, from one bloody brother to another no less bloody and ignorant. Nor is it the Jerusalem written with the understanding of the victors. Rather, it is the intractable Jerusalem that is being written about here, for the first time, with such depth and breadth, and with characters of various ethnicities and nationalities.