The Man of Twists and Turns

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced last weekend that he would call new presidential and parliamentary elections, because Hamas leaders in parliament refused to join a coalition government that might persuade international donors to lift their boycott of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, which defeated Abbas’s Fatah Party in this year’s parliamentary election, rejected the move and [...]

Publishers Weekly and Booklist, two important arenas for pre-publication reviews, give my forthcoming “The Collaborator of Bethlehem” starred reviews. Here are some excerpts: “This powerful first novel from British journalist Rees humanizes the struggle of the West Bank, where Omar Yussef, a modest 56-year old schoolteacher in the Dehaisha Palestinian refugee camp, becomes an unlikely [...]

My forthcoming mystery “The Collaborator of Bethlehem” has been reviewed in Kirkus Reviews and the reviewer highlights the portrayal of the violent environment Omar Yussef must face down. “Omar Yussef… takes to the mean streets–and are they ever mean,” Kirkus writes. It’s something I aimed for in writing the book: an accurate portrayal of what [...]

The first pre-publication review for The Collaborator of Bethlehem, the Omar Yussef Mystery to be published in the US on February 1 by Soho Press, is out. And Library Journal loves it! The influential magazine gave my book a “Starred Review.” Here it is, reprinted with permission: “In this outstanding debut, Rees, formerly the Jerusalem [...]

Writers have it all wrong. They think they need to learn about other writers. I studied English literature at Oxford University and I read all I could find of the sort of literary criticism which makes a novel seem like a piece of East German economic analysis. Three years later, I hadn’t learned a thing, [...]

I knew I was going out on a limb. I was an author. This photo was for the jacket of my new book. Obviously my chin should’ve been resting on my hand, or perhaps my jaw would be framed by a thoughtful thumb and forefinger. But no, I decided I wasn’t going to be that [...]