In the Fall of 2003, novelist Lia Nirgad joined Machsom-Watch - an Israeli women's group which monitors and documents the military activity at checkpoints in the Palestinian territories, and started attending weekly shifts at Qalandia, on the road between Ramallah and Jerusalem, observing the agonizing interaction between a crushed civilian population and an obtuse military machine.
Winter in Qalandia was born out of this intense commitment: For 16 weeks Nirgad wrote non-stop. Everything she witnessed, everything she experienced, was woven into this dynamic, insightful, vibrant text. Written in the present tense, each shift reads like a short story, focusing on specific incidents and people.
Lia Nirgad, a writer and translator, lived in Nigeria during the Biafra war, in Argentina under the Generals, and now lives in Tel-Aviv, an hour and a half away from Qalandia.
"Winter in Qalandia is a disturbing book... hard to put down... Nirgad's book speaks loudly for humanity."
Ha'aretz Literary Supplement
"Nirgad does the seemingly impossible: she weaves a story which chills the blood and the mind, without falling into the trap of righteous cliches, without claiming to objective documentation, against which the usual arsenal of denial can be used."
Ha'aretz
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