In 1985, Raja Shehadeh's father - a leading civil rights lawyer - was stabbed to death in Ramallah. The Israeli police failed to investigate the murder properly and Shehadeh, a lawyer himself, set about solving the crime that destroyed his family. In STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE, Shehadeh recounts his troubled and complex relationship with his father and his experience of exile - of being a stranger in his own land. It is a remarkable memoir that combines the personal and political to devastating effect.

Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah. He is the founder of a pioneering human rights organisation called Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. His most recent book, Palestinian Walks, won the 2008 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.