An account providing a human face to the realities of life in Palestine The Palestinian–Israeli conflict is one of the most widely reported and long standing struggles in the world, yet for many, misunderstanding is rife about its most basic issues. Hilda Reilly volunteered to work at An-Najah University in Nablus in order to spend time among many ordinary people, living under extraordinary circumstances. She lives among students, and relates the many conversations she has with a wide range of Palestinians about their thoughts on Hamas and Fatah, Yasser Arafat, bin Laden and Hussein, Blair and Bush, bringing readers an insight to the people behind the politics.
Hilda Reilly is originally from Perth in Scotland and has returned to live there, after spending most of her adult life abroad. Her occupations have ranged from the stupefyingly dull to the wondrously surreal; when asked that common question: What do you do? she has generally found that the most accurate reply is: I live on my wits.
After graduating from Edinburgh University she started training to become an actuary. Three months later she decided that not even the prospect of belonging to what was then the highest paid profession in the country could induce her to carry on in a career to which she was so unsuited.
Subsequent jobs have included oil industry analyst in London, artists’ model in Paris, technical translator in Baghdad, charity worker in Zanzibar, English teacher in Malaysia, journalist in Ho Chi Minh City and director of an educational organization in Khartoum.
In recent years she has returned to studying, obtaining an MSc in Consciousness Studies, for which she specialised in the neuroscience of religious experience, and an MA in Creative Writing, focusing on the use of narrative to explore the medical concept of hysteria. Her first novel, Guises of Desire, which draws on both of those areas of interest, deals with the life of Bertha Pappenheim, aka Anna O, the ‘founding patient’ of psychoanalysis. More recently she completed a PhD in Medical Humanities; her doctoral thesis is titled In Her Own Words: Exploring the Subjectivity of Freud's 'Teacher' Anna von Lieben. She is currently converting this into a book.
Publisher : Eye Books (September 1, 2006)
Language : English
Paperback : 230 pages
Item Weight : 2.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.7 x 7.75 inches