THE TALE OF A WALL

A Palestinian prisoner recalls how he survived a life sentence with the help of his imagination.

In 1993, Abu Srour was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole. While he does not discuss the nature of his alleged crime, the author mentions that his friend died during the arrest. Abu Srour began his imprisonment in the interrogation block. In a scene narrated in the second person, he implies that he was forced to sign a confession that presumably led to his long sentence. During his time in solitary confinement, Abu Srour found relief by conversing with imaginary voices and clinging to the concept of a metaphorical wall. Although he was anxious about his transfer to a new prison, upon arrival, he realized that, compared to solitary, “It was hardly a prison at all.” Abu Srour is candid about how his rich fantasy life—in which, he notes, “I slept with all the women of the tribe and all the neighboring tribes”—helped him survive watching “waves of prisoner releases” that excluded him over and over again. His situation changed when he met a woman named Nanna, a young lawyer who “was creative in her interactions with my madness.” Eventually, he writes, she became “a goddess of confined places and the goddess of me.” Unfortunately, the pressures of Abu Srour’s life sentence challenged their romance from the start. At its best, the narrative is moving and formally inventive, painting a surreal portrait of a political prisoner’s inner world. However, the extensive use of passive voice, selective lack of details—particularly about Abu Srour’s childhood and arrest—infuse the story with distance and confusion that sometimes make it difficult to read.

An intermittently insightful, unevenly paced, selectively lyrical memoir from a Palestinian prisoner.