Fifty Miles Wide

Author(s): Julian Sayarer

Location(s): Israel, Palestine

Genre(s): Travelogue

Era(s): contemporary

Location

Content

Ten years after breaking a world record for a circumnavigation by bicycle, award-winning travel writer Julian Sayarer returns to two wheels to write life at the roadsides of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. His journey weaves from fertile Mediterranean hills of the Galilee, down to the Bedouin of the sparse Naqab desert. He speaks with Palestinian hip-hop artists not sure if music can change their world, Israeli cycling activists who hope that bicycles can, and Palestinian cycle clubs determined to go on bike rides despite the military checkpoints that bar their way.

Riding through stories of Israel and Occupation in Palestine, talking to people at the roadside, the bicycle becomes a medium for more than just travel in this complex land, cutting through tensions to find truth, and some hope. The book reads as a meditation on making change; how people keep their spirit in dark times and continue to believe a different world is possible.

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