Most travel books are about movement and freedom: they are about getting places. Raja Shehadeh's is about not getting places, or rather, about the difficulty of getting places. These were Robert Macfarlane’s observations of A Rift in Time, explained in a fascinating talk about Shehadeh's new book.

The politics of landscape was at the heart of the discussion, just as it is at the heart of Shehadeh 's book. A Rift in Time is about his attempt to retrace the journey of his great uncle, Najib Nasser, along the part of the great Rift Valley which runs through the West Bank. The book is, of course, about how radically the land has been altered since the occupation and settlement of the West Bank by Israel. The obliteration of ancient towns and villages, the countless checkpoints, and the consequent straightjacketing of freedom of movement are all central. However, the discussion also foregrounded a far more insidious expropriation of the West Bank by Israel. Shehadeh told us how, on all of the maps that he had tried to use to mark out his uncle's journey, “almost every spring, hill and valley in Palestine had been renamed” by the Israeli authorities. He had to turn to the Scottish National Library in order to obtain a map which represented the original Palestinian topography. What is so insidious about this kind of re-inscription is that it eradicates history and dispossesses Palestinians of their heritage. By re-inscribing all official and readily available maps, Israel is erasing and re-writing history. As was pointed out, for a state which emphasises the importance of preserving and remembering history, and holds its denial as a capital offence, this is deeply and appallingly ironic.

However, landscape ultimately emerged from the talk not as a site of confinement and emasculation, but as a source of hope and optimism. For what Shehadeh stressed during the discussion is the permanence of nature compared to the transitoriness of politics and arbitrary borders. He told us of how he had used almond trees to map out where a Palestinian village had once stood, almond trees only growing where planted. It is these kinds of clues and this kind of memorialisation that he finds ultimately hopeful in the landscape, and which he sees as also providing a way of resisting occupation and retaining a sense of national heritage.

Raja Shehadeh was a revelation. For anyone interested either in nature writing, travel writing, or politics, and even more so for those interested in all three, he is essential reading.