Chief Complaint

Hatim Kanaaneh turns his attention to the shifting, fragile lives of Palestinians who remain in Israel, a community whose place in the land has grown more uncertain over time. These stories are set among people he knew personally, since he was the first physician in his village to receive Western medical training.

Drawing on that closeness, Kanaaneh presents a set of fictionalized vignettes that follow his neighbors through hardship, small victories, recollections, and hopes. The stories are carefully constructed, and they examine a state that does not recognize the community's history and offers little support for its future.

The structure borrows from the way doctors record a patient's problem. Each story takes its title from the protagonist's chief complaint, the reason for the visit.

Read together, the stories show the central concern of the indigenous Palestinian community and its complicated relationship with the state of Israel.