Book talk: Nathan Thrall’s “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama” – A Book talk with Kenneth Roth, CMES, Harvard University, October 23, 2023

Date: Monday, October 23, 2023, 6:00pm to 7:00pm; Location: Wasserstein 1010, Harvard Law School campus

Join the HKS Carr Center for Human Rights Policy for a book talk with author Nathan Thrall as he discusses his latest book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, with Carr Center Senior Fellow, Kenneth Roth.

Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but tragedy awaits: his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, rushes to the chaotic site, only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad’s fate, navigating a maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a Palestinian.

Interwoven with Abed’s odyssey are the stories of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and pasts unexpectedly converge: a kindergarten teacher and a mechanic who rescue children from the burning bus; an Israeli army commander and a Palestinian official who confront the aftermath at the scene of the crash; a settler paramedic; ultra-Orthodox emergency service workers; and two mothers who each hope to claim one severely injured boy.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a deeply immersive, stunningly detailed portrait of life in Israel and Palestine, and an illumination of the reality of one of the most contested places on earth.

Nathan Thrall is the author of The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, Guardian, New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was Director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College, New York. He lives in Jerusalem.

Kenneth Roth is the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, DC. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of the major powers, and the work of the United Nations.

This event is co-sponsored by the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (Harvard Divinity School), Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (Northeastern), Human Rights Program (Harvard Law School), the Program in Law and Society in the Muslim World (Harvard Law School), and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Harvard University).

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