Over a time span of nearly 150 years, this novel tells the story of Ramallah. The novel presents what appears to be a context for the transformation of a small village under Ottomaan rule in the last quarter of the 19th century, into a city where times intertwine and destinies are cut short, leading up to the present day. This makes the novel propose a narrative answer to the question: how did the city come to be what it is today?

With narrative levels that vary in language and structure, between the major historical events that Ramallah has experienced, and the life experiences of those who lived in the Dar al-Najar house, the Palestinian novelist Abad Yahya, writes a biography of the city, its place, and its people. He penetrates into the city’s layers and its consciousness, and the branches of collective and individual emotions of those who lived there in its different stages.

In the novel’s chapters, the temporal periods revolve and intertwine, forming a picture of the city and its development. Professor Amjad Aaish, a university professor, faces a history of Ramallah on the borders between the real and the imaginary while searching for an answer to the most important question of his life.

Ramallah: The story of a city. Wars and migrations, alienation and intimacy, love affairs and betrayals, prisons, and exiles and nostalgia. Buried stories lead to thresholds in a house that is over a century old.