One look from both sides – Brotherland is a dual point of view look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, brought down to its core human element. It goes beyond demystifying the enemy as it puts both points of view as chance happenings of birth. Brotherland is the historical saga of twin infants, separated in the Holy Land in 1948. Ameer is adopted by a Palestinian couple on the run, while Amir is adopted by an Israeli officer and his wife. We suffer, laugh, question and wonder with the twins as they spend their lives unknowingly fighting each other, have mysterious near encounters in the heat of the battle, suffer and despair in parallel, until fate reunites them in a climatic face-off right where it all started, in their Brotherland. Will they know who, or “what” they are? Are they the enemy, the other? Is there an other?
The dual and opposed subjectivity of this saga, paradoxically, lends an objective tone to Brotherland, leading to empathy for both sides and eliminating the mutual hate-factor as the underlying catalyst perpetuating the conflict. To win over hate, one has to challenge their every belief and certainty, their herd’s conformity bias. One has to cross bridges they first must build, to meet and “become” the other. Brotherland is that bridge.
In Brotherland, Georges Melhem, an engineer by education and trade, tries to blend his inclination for the technical and his passion for the artistic. As he haplessly watched the second intifada’s horror unfold on TV, and having first-witnessed war long enough in his own country, he started writing, trying to bridge the realms of logic and emotions, of reality and fiction. Mission: deconstruct the very foundation of (this and every) human conflict. With his passion for photography supplementing him with the right visuals, he tries to articulate the intangible and portray the ineffable complexities of the human spirit, good and bad, in black on white.
Brotherland is a “fictional reality” where fiction deconstructs reality and reality demystifies fiction.
It took me less than a few pages to get hooked and emerge only a couple of days later with my usual sense of loss when I finish a book I loved. If someone with the right intelligence understands the scope and the potentialities of the message that the book carries and decides to finance and produce it, it will be awesome. – Karim Mezran, Author, Resident Senior Fellow, the Atlantic council.
For direct contact and info: Georges Melhem +961 3 605060 | [email protected]