Voted one of the Top 25 Books of 1999 by the Village Voice."An outstanding anthology of essays surveying the complexities of Mediterranean cultures; the diverse, changing space of the Balkans, Middle East, and North Africa—areas of diasporas, dislocations, and genocidal exterminations provoked by nationalism and religious fanaticism. Of special interest are his observations and analysis of the Israeli/Palestinian confrontation, Arab/Jewish poetics, and Jewish identity in America."—Midwest Book Review Table of Contents Local Politics: The Background as Foreword Ammiel Alcalay Acknowledgments Five Hundred Years After: What Was Left Unsaid about Sepharad Juan Goytisolo PRELUDES: AN OPENING weighing the losses, like stones in your hand" Atonement OF BOOKS AND CITIES/ THE JOURNEY My Mediterranean The Quill"s Embroidery: Untangling a Tradition The Quill"s Embroidery: Poetry, Tradition, and the Postmodern" Paris / New York / Jerusalem: The Unscheduled Flight of Edmond Jabes and Jacques Derrida Perplexity Index Desert Solitaire: On Edmond Jabes For Edouard Roditi Behind the Scenes: Before After Jews and Arabs FORBIDDEN TERRITORIES, PROMISED LANDS On Arabesques After the Last Sky Who"s Afraid of Mahmoud Darwish? Israel and the Levant: Wounded Kinship"s Last Resort" Forbidden Territory, Promised Lands In True Colors Culture without a Country Too Much Past The State of the Gulf: Abdelrahman Munif and Hanan al-Shaykh Our Memory Has No Future: On Etel Adnan The war was ending, the diasporas beginning" DISPATCHES A Stitch in Time Court Report: Prolonging a Farce The Trial: A Real Farce Ay, de mi aljama": Palestinians and Israelis Meet, in Spain! Israel / Palestine 101: A Letter to Robert Creeley Quality Control Ushering in the New Order: Repercussions from the Gulf War Reflections at the End of 1992 Why Israel? THE RETURN: VARIATIONS ON A THEME Understanding Revolution Exploding Identities: Notes on Ethnicity and Literary History Speaking with Forked Tongues, or Parables of Eq