Balcony on the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine

Balcony on the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine
Publisher: FSG Macmillan
Published Date: October 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0374302511

Picking up where Tasting the Sky left off, Balcony on the Moon follows Ibtisam Barakat through her childhood and adolescence in Palestine from 1972-1981 and chronicles her desire to be a writer. Ibtisam finds inspiration through writing letters to pen pals and from an adult who encourages her to keep at it, but the most surprising turn of all for Ibtisam happens when her mother decides that she would like to seek out an education, too. This memoir is a touching, at times funny, and enlightening look at the not often depicted daily life in a politically tumultuous area. 

Review(s):

Reviewed by: Amelia Smith

Ibtisam Barakat’s house in Ramallah is made of memories, not stone, she tells us. It is made of birds migrating in the sky, of her mother and father, of the skateboards her brother made from wooden vegetable boxes and of musical instruments shaped from rubber bands. It is these memories which fill the pages of her memoir, “Balcony on the...

Author(s):

Winners of the Palestine Book Awards

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