The Way to the Spring

<b>&#147;<i>The Way to the Spring</i>&#160;is a riveting and powerful work . . . . Readers near and far who seek greater understanding of how Palestinians live&#151;and the violence they endure&#151;are well served by Ehrenreich&#146;s book.&#148;&#160;&#151;<i>Haaretz</i><br><br>&#147;Ehrenreich's haunting poignant and memorable stories add up to a weighty contribution to the Palestinian side of the scales of history.&#148;&#160;&#151;<i>New York Times Book Review&#160;</i><br><br>&#147;An impassioned and humane story.&#148;&#160;&#151;<i>O Magazine</i><br><br>From an award-winning journalist a brave and necessary immersion into the everyday struggles of Palestinian life&#160;</b><br><br> Over the past three years American writer Ben Ehrenreich has been traveling to and living in the West Bank staying with Palestinian families in its largest cities and its smallest villages.&#160;Along the way he has written major stories for American outlets including a remarkable&#160;<i>New York Times Magazine&#160;</i>cover story. Now comes the powerful new work that has always been his ultimate goal&#160;<i>The Way to the Spring</i>.<br><br> We are familiar with brave journalists who travel to bleak or war-torn places&#160;on a mission to listen and understand to gather the stories of&#160;people suffering from extremes of oppression and want: Katherine&#160;Boo&#160;Ryszard Kapu&#347;ci&#324;ski Ted Conover&#160;and Philip&#160;Gourevitch among them. Palestine is by any measure whatever one's politics one such place. Ruled by the Israeli military set upon and harassed constantly by Israeli settlers who admit unapologetically to wanting to drive them from the land forced to negotiate an ever more elaborate and more suffocating series of fences checkpoints and barriers that have sundered home from field home from home this is a population whose living conditions are unique and indeed hard to imagine. In a great act of bravery empathy and understanding Ben Ehrenreich by placing us in the footsteps of ordinary Palestinians and telling their story with surpassing literary power and grace makes it impossible for us to turn away.