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    The Sun InterviewBy Judith HertogTo RemainRaja Shehadeh on Living through Destruction in Palestine

    I have been thinking that people all over the world these days are feeling a sense of despair because, like me, they are seeing the destruction of the world as they knew it. But it has occurred to me that the real destruction of my world happened in 1948, when the Palestinians lost Palestine.

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John Purugganan

John Purugganan is serving a life sentence in a California prison. He is the author of the play Let’s Keep Dancing, which won the first annual Arts in Correction Playwriting Contest in 1992, sponsored by UCLA’s extension program. He is currently seeking a production company for his screenplays Blood Parable and Hush. Correspondence can be sent to: John Purugganan E-71364, CSC-LAC/A2-108, P.O. Box 4430, Lancaster, CA 93539.

Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

You’re In Prison

It’s not like in the movies. That stuff really happens, but it doesn’t all happen in an hour and a half, in three acts that build to a dramatic conclusion, like it does on the big screen. You think it’s going to be exactly like that, especially after you’ve been convicted and sentenced, and you’re still being housed at the county jail, and some guy asks if you’ve ever been to the “pen.”

October 2006
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