Runo Isaksen. Literature and War: Conversations with Israeli and Palestinian Writers.

• Position: Book review

Runo Isaksen. Literature and War: Conversations with Israeli and Palestinian Writers. (Translated by Karl Dickson.) Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press/Interlink Publishers Group Inc, 2009. 222 pages. Paper $18.00.

This book is an attempt to find another way, a cultural backdoor, that might provide a new perspective of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Isaken makes conversations with sixteen Palestinian and Jewish writers and turns attention to their literature at many times, and when possible. He suggests that accessing each others literature may lead to a possible shift in relations between the two sides. He suggests meeting the "other" in the other side's literature and this indeed is a noble intention as long as the hidden purpose of these writings is not to legitimate a racist state.

Isaksen interviewed mostly secular writers and their position politically is to the left. He says all Israeli writers were against Israeli occupation and all Palestinian writers were for binational or a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel. He chose living writers who have had experienced conflict first hand and who's work was translated into one or several languages. The Palestinian writers and...