"Gabal El Raml"... Story of Searching for Home

In 2019, "Gabal El Raml" (Sand Mountain), is an autobiography for the Palestinian photographer and photojournalist Randa Shaath. Shaath lives in Cairo and her "Gabal El Raml" is her fourth book.

Through the book, Shaath beautifully expresses the complicated issues of immigration, home, and identity. She touches upon her feelings in approaching the concept of home and security in different phases in her life, especially childhood.

An autobiography that is full of details and vivid images could attract the reader to catch every visual and auditory image due to her rich description.

The stories around the oil, food, holiday meals, the old-forgotten rituals of family gatherings engage the reader to imagine and feel those situations. Also, it gives the reader the space to interact with those situations.

Moreover, Shaath depends on symbolism to deliver those complicated definitions of home and identity. Staring with the title "Gabal El Raml" where she used to play and build her sandcastles, and her comfort zone. Therefore, she compares the various changes in her life and childhood to the stages of Gabal El Raml's progression.

The disappearance of this spot of sands is like the fading of her identity and concept of the home after the death of her mother, grandmother, and the continuous crisis of Palestine.

Moreover, the story of her grandmother and old trees are the main supporter of the family's warmth and the main ties which connect those scattered family members.

Through the book, Shaath narrates a lot of enjoyable and catchy stories about the feelings of a woman who is forced to change her home and place, her memories are scattered between Egypt, Palestine, the US, and Lebanon. The stories of conferences of discussions around the Palestinean crisis.

A number of objects form the main company of the reader during reading the book such as cameras, mirrors, and photos. So, Shaath beautifully uses her camera and her memory to give the reader a photo-like description and script alongside attaching wonderful photos to the book.

Observations from revolution, founding new career in various newspapers and magazines, streets, and family stories enrich the meaning of this autobiography.

The concept of documentation and preserving those precious details to tell those who may forget their history, their lands, their identity to keep the faith, remember, narrate to survive, and rise above pain and longing.