The Lanterns of the King of Galilee: A Novel of 18th Century Palestine

In the beginning of the 18^th century, on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, between the hills of Galilee and Marj Ibn Amar, a young man of the common people began his ambitious undertaking: liberating his country and establishing an Arab state on the land of Palestine. It was the greatest dream that one could entertain in those days, and the person who achieved it was called Daher el-Omar Alzidani (1689–1775). To achieve that end, it was necessary to challenge the greatest power in the world of that time: the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over three continents.

The Lanterns of the King of Galilee is a wide-ranging historical novel by the prolific Palestinian-Jordanian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah. It is one of the works in the Palestinian Comedy series, Nasrallah’s comprehensive literary undertaking, which also included the novel Time of White Horses, which was translated into Hebrew in 2018 and which, too, was published in the Maktoub series.

Editing of the translation: Kappah Abd Elhalim

Literary editing: Dafna Rosenblit

Preface: Eyad Barguthy

Afterword: Prof. Mahmoud Yazbak

Cover: Taleb Dweik

Moonrise over Palestine (1988)