Jerusalem, Holy And Captive

From the heart of Jerusalem, Ayestaran delves into its culture to discover the complex identity of the Holy City.

This is a chronicle of Jerusalem - the city where Mikel Ayestaran has lived with his family for years - written in the first person based on the stories of neighbors from the four neighborhoods (Muslim, Jewish, Armenian and Christian) of the Old City. Through them, the author unites past and present, and talks about what life is like in a city captive of its holiness, desired by Jews, Muslims and Christians, a city in which the past consumes the future. As a reflection, an unfulfilled wish that Amos Oz transmitted to the author in one of their meetings: “I wished I’d blown up the holy places in 1967”.