A novel of great humanity compassion and astonishing immediacy this inventive and unique
debut captures the emotional reality of contemporary life in the West Bank and the
irreconcilable Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a collage of narrative voices and different
viewpoints centered on a particular set of events. Brave and bold this gorgeously written
novel introduces a large cast of characters from various backgrounds in a setting where
violence is routine and where survival is defined by boundaries walls and checkpoints that
force people to live and love within and across them.Hamid a college student has entered
Israeli territory illegally for work. Rushing past soldiers he bumps into Vera a German
journalist headed to Jerusalem to cover the story of Salem a Palestinian boy beaten into a
coma by a group of revenge-seeking Israeli teenagers. On her way to the hospital Vera runs in
front of a car that barely avoids hitting her. The driver is Ido a new father traveling with
his American wife and their baby. Ido is distracted by thoughts of a young Jewish girl murdered
by a terrorist who infiltrated her settlement. Ori a nineteen-year-old soldier from a nearby
settlement is guarding the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem through which
Samar—Hamid's professor—must pass. These multiple strands open this magnificent and haunting
novel of present-day Israel and Palestine following each of these diverse characters as they
try to protect what they love. Their interwoven stories reveal complicated painful truths
about life in this conflicted land steeped in hope love hatred terror and blood on both
sides.City of a Thousand Gates brilliantly evokes the universal drives that motivate these
individuals to think and act as they do—desires for security for freedom for dignity for the
future of one's children for land that each of us no matter who or where we are recognize
and share.
