What is called in Arabic al-Nakbah (the catastrophe) was the exodus of Palestinians during the 1948 Palestine war. For Olfat Mahmoud, it was the flight of her grandmother, Alia, and her family from their home village of Tarshiha after it was bombed by Israeli planes and later subjected to an artillery barrage. With most of the villagers she went to Lebanon. She never returned; subsequent Israeli government legislation prevented the return of Palestinian refugees.
Read the review by Bill Perrett in The Sydney Morning Herald.