Barghouti, Mourid. I saw Ramallah.

Random House, Anchor. 184p. c2000.1-4000-3266-0. $12.00. SA

A Palestinian poet, Barghouti crosses a bridge, returning to Jordan after an absence of 30 years. In this book, he tells what it feels like to be a Palestinian today, with feelings of displacement, of injustice gnawing at the core of his being. The ground on which he walks, his ancestral home, has been disputed territory since "the disaster of 1947" and subsequent lost battles in 1967 and 1973. His stay in Jordan is full of procedures, the need to get permissions, and of an overwhelming feeling that all is not right. Though only brief passages are written in verse form, this is a poetic book. It is full of memories and of deep anger at the passing away of things that once were. There is no full reunion with his family, as one might expect of such a homecoming, though he attends an event that he calls a family reunion. There is talk of the Intifada and a struggle for survival in the midst of political upheaval.

Barghouti is a man of the world, taking up the burdens of his country in the writing of this volume. It is not a hopeful book, but rather an insider's personal view of a conflict that is reported in much more superficial, public terms in the media. This is beautifully written, but sad in its overall view of a future governed by intractable problems. Edna M. Boardman, Bismark, ND