In this article, a Palestinian refugee writes of his return after thirty years to the village where he was born and from which his family was forced to flee in 1967, when he was a child. The article addresses how exile affects the individual's relationship to place for refugees, as well as for those who remain and those born in the diaspora.

Mureed al-Barghouti is the former cultural attache and deputy ambassador of Palestine to Hungary. He now resides in Cairo. This essay is an abridged version of a piece that first appeared in the spring 1997 issue of the Arabic quarterly Carmel and is published with permission.