Serene Husseini Shahid's book is in fact a historical and a human treasure, culled mostly from fragments, many of them pleasurable, and from fugitive pleasures and more lasting misfortunes, and arranged with great respect and affection so as to educate and of course beguile the reader who would otherwise know nothing of this essentially lost world. It is personal testimony, yes, but it is also literature- informal, humane, sincere, generous and eloquent. Out of such vital material will the Palestinian future be constructed, material that will endure much longer and serve purposes more large than she, in her modesty, could have expected. It deserves to be joined in the museum of memory by other works of recollection so that neither amnesia nor what passes for historical progress can ever again neglect the experiences they tell. Edward W. SaidArabic copy.