The secret quest to preserve Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh's diaries

Raja Shehadeh looks at folders from his archive in 2026. Yazeed Abu Khdeir hide caption

The world's leading Palestinian writer, Raja Shehadeh, has been on a mission to save his most personal work: his diaries.

The award-winning author of more than 20 books has been documenting decades of Palestinian life, starting in 1967 at the very beginning of Israel's occupation of the West Bank when he was a teenager.

Raja Shehadeh's first diary entry from May 11, 1967. Raja Shehadeh hide caption

His diaries capture a unique voice and front row view of history: his meetings with world leaders, his work as a human rights lawyer, and his role as legal advisor to the Palestinians during peace talks with Israel.

Shehadeh, now 75, feared his diaries and archives — kept in his garage in the West Bank city of Ramallah — were at risk of destruction from Israeli military operations. (The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment about Shehadeh's fears.)

Yazeed Abu Khdeir (left) and Mahmoud Muna work to digitize papers, as Raja Shehadeh (standing) looks on. Hannah Harper hide caption

So he took part in a two-year, discreet effort to spirit them to Scotland, where he has spent many summers. The archives are now at the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Exeter in England has published thousands of pages online .

Shehadeh spoke with NPR's Daniel Estrin about his decades of diary writing, and the secret effort to preserve his archives.

How keeping a diary consistently for so long impacted who he is as a writer

It's been a daily effort...in order to understand better what is happening around me, in order to record and document what is happening. I started when I was...fifteen years old, just before the occupation. It has been a very good discipline because it helped me understand myself and what's happening around me...I was feeling that we are entering into a historic period that needs to be documented. So I went about writing everything down that was happening and preserving whatever I could preserve.

Excerpts from Shehadeh's diary during Israel's invasion of Ramallah at the height of the Palestinian Intifada in 2002

Last night was very noisy. I was awakened many times from the sound of the bombing and shooting ...

My mood was not good today. I just got too many telephones. The problem then became that the news spread that my spirits (so it was interpreted are down) so I got more calls from those who thought it is their duty to call me to help raise my morale ...