A fierce and moving memoir on returning to Palestine, from Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti. Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, Barghouti spent 30 years in exile – shuttling among the world’s cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest. As he returns home for the first time since the Israeli occupation, Barghouti crosses a wooden bridge over the Jordan River into Ramallah and is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories of the old Palestine as they come up against what he now encounters in this mere ‘idea of Palestine’, he discovers how the joy of return and reunion is accompanied by a feeling of insurmountable loss.