My Name is Rachel Corrie
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Written by Rachel Corrie, Alan Rickman, and Katharine Viner.
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Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
"A powerful, thought-provoking and deeply moving piece of theatre."-Daily Telegraph
"Theatre can't change the world. But what it can do, when it's as good as this, is to send us out enriched by other people's passionate concern."-Guardian
I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls. You just can't imagine it unless you see it. And even then your experience is not at all the reality . . . [due to] the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and of course, the fact that I have the option of leaving. I am allowed to see the ocean.-Rachel Corrie
On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old American, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip as she was trying to prevent the demolition of the Palestinian homes. My Name is Rachel Corrie is a one-woman play composed from Rachel's own journals, letters, and e-mails-creating a portrait of a messy, skinny, articulate, Salvador Dalí-loving chain-smoker (with a passion for the music of Pat Benatar), who left home and school in Olympia, Washington, "to support Palestinian non-violent resistance to Israel's military occupation." The piece premiered at London's Royal Court Theatre, with an award-winning, sold-out run, before its transfer to the West End.
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Eeyore thinks this book is Excellent.
I first heard of this book, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie", because it was a play, directed by Alan Rickman in London. It's now being staged in various places, Edinburgh, Scotland and eventually in New York City in the fall of 2006 and in Seattle, Washington, in the spring of 2007.
The play and the book are based on the writings of Rachel Corrie, a young woman who grew up in Olympia, Washington, USA, who from her ordinary childhood seemed to have a vision of what the world would be like if people only cared enough to get involved in trying to stop hunger, tried to work towards world peace. Lofty, idealistic goals shared by many children, that's true.
But Rachel Corrie tried to make a difference in the world, unlike most of us who set our ideals aside as we "grow up". She was killed in the Gaza strip as she stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer (they are the size of and are outfitted in a way that makes them more like a military tank than a construction bulldozer common in the US), trying to stop the demolition of a family's home. In her short time there, she saw what the families under curfew endured daily, not being able to go to school, work, shop for food or even maintain their family gardens that were sometimes destroyed. She was only 23 years old.
What makes this book so incredible is the journey that the reader takes with Rachel as she changes from a normal US teen to a concerned, caring, peaceful young adult, as she became increasingly aware of the danger and sadness of life for Palestinian families in the Gaza strip. Whether or not you agree with what she did is really beside the point. She was neither hero nor villain; she was one person, seeking to change something she saw as an injustice.
The story, "My Name is Rachel Corrie", leaves the reader with the stark realization that if we all took only one lesson from Rachel's all-too-short life, the world would be a better place. One person is still only one person, but one person can impact the lives of others in ways even she never dreamed. And things will never be better, whether it is peace in the Middle East or hunger around the world, unless we all lend our voices and hearts to helping other people.