Self-portrait As Ruth

Rooted in a Jewish family history that reaches into 19th-century Ottoman Palestine,Self-Portrait as Ruth is written in defiance of all official versions of Israeli or Palestinian history. A challenging, aching, honest exploration of culpability, this lament will incite controversy and debate. These poems are interrogations of the first-person possessive—of claims, both singular and plural, to land, to identity, to history, and to the body—and of wounds and victimization, both unique and collective.

Jasmine Donahaye is a creative writing lecturer at Swansea University, specializing in creative nonfiction and poetry. She is the author of the poetry collectionMisappropriations, which was shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and the monographWhose People? Wales, Israel, Palestine.