Nine Quarters Of Jerusalem: A New Biography Of The Old City

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For as long as I can remember, I've been a writer. Fortunately, not much of my early stuff survives. I grew up in suburban south London. A family holiday to Jerusalem in 1980, when I was 11, was my first trip outside the UK. Even today, the smell of cumin takes me straight back there. That was also my first time in the desert - I remember standing on a lonely road, feeling the hottest sun I'd ever felt, seeing the longest views I'd ever seen. Since then, I've lived and worked in Amman, Cairo, Jerusalem and elsewhere, learnt some Arabic and Hebrew, and travelled widely, over twenty years or more, through most of the Middle East. I'm the author of the Rough Guides to Jordan, Switzerland, the Italian Lakes and - closer to home - the Cotswolds. I also contribute regularly to the national newspapers, as well as magazines from Wanderlust to BBC Wildlife. My website matthewteller.com has more.

Original and illuminating ... what a good book this is' Jonathan Dimbleby'A love letter to the people of the Old City' Jerusalem PostIn Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. Maps divide the walled Old City into four quarters, yet that division doesn't reflect the reality of mixed and diverse neighbourhoods. Beyond the crush and frenzy of its major religious sites, much of the Old City remains little known to visitors, its people overlooked and their stories untold. Nine Quarters of Jerusalem lets the communities of the Old City speak for themselves. Ranging through ancient past and political present, it evokes the city's depth and cultural diversity.Matthew Teller's highly original 'biography' features the Old City's Palestinian and Jewish communities, but also spotlights its Indian and African populations, its Greek and Armenian and Syriac cultures, its downtrodden Dom Gypsy families and its Sufi mystics. It discusses the sources of Jerusalem's holiness and the ideas - often startlingly secular - that have shaped lives within its walls. Nine Quarters of Jerusalem is an evocation of place through story, led by the voices of Jerusalemites.

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