Dr. Walid Shurafa receives Palestinian State Appreciation Award for his latest novel

Dr. Walid Shurafa, media and cultural studies professor at Birzeit University, received the 2022 Palestinian State Appreciation Award for his novel A Swing of Bones, the concluding volume of his Transformation and Trauma tetralogy.

In his tetralogy, Shurafa fuses fantasy and realism to explore the Palestinian struggle for independence, statehood and the right of return. In addition to A Swing of Bones, the series includes Coming from the Resurrection, Heir of the Tombstone and I Wish I Were Blind.

A Swing of Bones depicts the struggles of a failed director who escapes the horrors of the Israeli aggression on the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and finds solace and serenity in his journey of recovery from heart disease in Mar Saba monastery. His healing journey is complicated by the presence of an Israeli soldier who disturbs the peace of the monastery.

Through an experimental style, Shurafa blends memories and hallucinations, reality and nightmares, trauma and physical illness and healing and death to juxtapose the atrocities committed during the siege of the Church of Nativity with the miracles that take place at the monastery.

The novel was published by Al Dar Al Ahlia in Jordan and Dar Al Amane Library in Morocco.