This map plots the settings and references in Gate of the Sun
To start exploring, click a red pin
Shatila - Credit:
IsmailKupeli, Flickr
The book is set in the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon, in the mid-1990s.
Events take place in Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon, and in Palestinian (Arab-Israeli) communities in Galilee, Israel.
The book also narrates the story of Palestinian villages in Galilee that were depopulated in 1947/8, during Israel’s War of Independence, or what the Palestinians commonly refer to as the Nakba (Catastrophe).
Lebanon
Gate of the Sun is a cave in the forests of Galilee, in the hills above the town of Deir Al Asad.
When the town of al-Kabri fell, the cemetery was bulldozed along with the homes.
By 1992, the depopulated town was described thus: "crumbled walls and stone rubble, overgrown with thorns, weeds, and bushes".
In Black September (1970), the PLO were expelled from Jordan after half-hearted attempts to overthrow the King of Jordan and establish a quasi-Palestinian state in the country.
The PLO moved to Lebanon, where in 1975 war broke out.