Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian activist and writer based at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK. Karmi was born in Jerusalem but fled to UK in 1948 at the age of 8, where she grew up and became a physician, academic and writer.
Her memoir In Search of Fatima,published in 2002, received critical acclaim as did her book Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine, a history of Israel and Palestine that argues for a single, secular state. Her other books include Jerusalem Today, The Palestinian Exodus, and The Ethnic Health Handbook.
Her latest book, Return: A Palestinian Memoir deals with her first extended trip to her homeland. She also recounts her experiences working with the Palestinian Authority and contending both with bureaucracy and occupation.
In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Currently, Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, although she has described her full-time job as ‘Palestinian’.
Karmi lives in London.
