Raja Shehadeh
رجا شحادة
Born: Ramallah, Palestine
Domain: Literature & Poetry
Recognition: GLOBAL
Biography
Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian writer, lawyer, and human rights pioneer, widely regarded as the leading practitioner of the Palestinian memoir and reflective non-fiction. Born in Ramallah in 1951 into a prominent family, he trained in law in London and returned to the West Bank, where his writing and legal work have been inseparable from the documentation of life under occupation. In 1979 he co-founded Al-Haq, one of the first Palestinian human rights organizations and an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, pioneering the legal documentation of occupation practices. This grounding in law and evidence gives his prose a distinctive precision, even as it ranges into landscape, memory, and inner life. He is the author of more than a dozen books, the most celebrated being "Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape" (2007), which won the Orwell Prize, Britain's most prestigious award for political writing. Structured around walks (sarhat) through the hills of the West Bank, the book meditates on how settlement and occupation are transforming a beloved terrain, and it established him internationally as a major essayist. His other works, including "Strangers in the House," "When the Bulbul Stopped Singing," and "Going Home," extend his exploration of exile, family, law, and the texture of daily Palestinian existence. His books have been translated into many languages and are taught in universities worldwide. By fusing the moral authority of a human rights jurist with the sensibility of a literary essayist, Shehadeh has created a distinctive body of non-fiction that has shaped international understanding of the occupation and earned him a permanent place in contemporary Palestinian letters.
Why This Person Matters
An Orwell Prize-winning essayist and co-founder of the human rights group Al-Haq, he is the foremost author of the Palestinian memoir and reflective non-fiction.