World News
Raja Shehadeh's personal and family archives transferred to University of Edinburgh
The Palestinian writer and lawyer moved his 60-year collection to Scotland to protect it from conflict-related destruction in the West Bank and Gaza.
The short version
- Palestinian author and lawyer Raja Shehadeh is officially transferring his personal journals and his late father's papers to the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Research Collections.
- The 5-million-word archive, spanning nearly 60 years, was digitized in East Jerusalem and mailed to Scotland in eight separate consignments.
- The official launch of the records in Edinburgh is scheduled for September 3, 2026, accompanied by online sample publications from the University of Exeter.
Key facts
- Raja Shehadeh began keeping his personal diaries on May 11, 1967, at the age of 15.[Al Jazeera]
- The archive comprises over 5 million words across tens of thousands of pages, including material belonging to Shehadeh's late father, Aziz Shehadeh.[Al Jazeera]
- Shehadeh chose to relocate the archives in late 2023 due to concerns that they could be destroyed amid Israeli incursions in the West Bank and the war in Gaza.[Al Jazeera]
- Mahmoud Muna, proprietor of the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem, led a task force to digitize the papers and shipped them to Scotland using standard international mail.[Al Jazeera]
- The project was coordinated with assistance from the University of Exeter and project director Matthew Teller.[Al Jazeera]
- Shehadeh and his heirs retain full intellectual property rights and copyright control over the archived material.[Al Jazeera]