My happiness bears no relation to happiness

"Composed with a novelist's eye for detail and a detective's fascination with getting to the bottom of dramatic events, this is the first biography of a Palestinian writer ever to be published in English. It places Taha Muhammad Ali's life in the dynamic context of the lives of his predecessors, friends, and peers. Hoffman's linked portraits of the leading Palestinian writers of the last century provide a startling panorama of a singular literary world that has, until now, remained largely unknown to readers in the West."--BOOK JACKET.