KHANO, DELIA — By Eastern Windows

D Khano. 1985. (ISBN: 9780951079508). Paperback, 1.00. Paperback in good condition. First Edition. Drawings by Ivy Nasir. [6], 206 pages, 8 plates, pictorial wrappers, very good. From the publisher: "Delia Khano is an Oxford graduate who in 1960 met and married Gabriel Khano, a Christian Palestinian. While telling the story of their courtship in Petra, wedding in Bethlehem and early married life in Jerusalem, she fills in the details of Gabriel's eventful childhood and youth. She mentions the forced migration from Turkey that his parents endured as children, and records episodes that impinged on the family from the explosive Arab-Jewish situation before 1948. The creation of Israel in that year made them refugees - his parents for the second time in their lives - and they had a hard struggle to survive in the early days of Jordan. The highway of Gabriel's life proved to be the tourist business and it was as an exceptionally good guide that he first met Delia. She briefly describes her birthplace in Wales and her life near Oxford before she went to the Middle East; but the action continues with their starting a tourist agency that they called the Guiding Star. This was built on snowballing recommendation and Gabriel's personality was dominant: lively, flamboyant, a sincere Christian but capable of minor wickednesses, generous to a fault, charming, he was mainly responsible for the success that the Guiding Star rapidly achieved. The Arab-Israeli conflict is felt throughout - the 1967 wear found the couple outside the country and almost unable to get in again - and politics take their place with passages on the history, religion and culture of the Middle East, a colourful tale about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and stories of Gabriel's little known community, the Assyrians, to make a patchwork o f information that adds interest to this unusual biography.". Used: Acceptable.