You don’t just turn the pages—you step into them
SCARS AND MEDALS
More than words on a page, this memoir breathes with memory. You don’t just turn the pages—you step into them
SCARS AND MEDALS
Some stories entertain.
Some stories change the way we see the world.
Born in Tulkarm, Palestine, Mohanad Alsayed grew up amid conflict, uncertainty, and loss, where surviving another day could never be taken for granted. At twenty-three, he immigrated to the United States in search of a new beginning, but distance could not erase the memories—or the questions—that had shaped his life.
Years later, a promise to his dying grandmother sent him on an extraordinary journey across Europe to search for the uncle she had not seen in decades, a man who had vanished while being pursued by the Mossad. That search became more than a family mission. It became a journey through history, identity, and the enduring consequences of conflict.
Scars and Medals is Mohanad's true story—a deeply personal memoir that invites readers beyond the headlines and into the life of someone who lived them. Through moments of fear, hope, heartbreak, and resilience, he offers a perspective that is both intimate and profoundly human.
His purpose is not to tell readers what to believe, but to invite them to witness, to understand, and to remember.
“In Scars and medals Mohanad takes readers on an exciting, moving, and decades-long international search for a missing uncle. The memoir is intimate, insightful, and immediately engaging. it will appeal not just to people interested in the politics and history of Palestine, but to anyone who enjoys a good story.”
“This book is a story about deep wounds, about what we cannot make sense of. But it is also a story about repair.
He takes us through the intimate depths of a family’s entrenched
agony—a microcosm of layered, incalculable losses that every Palestinian has endured in a myriad of ways.
He searches for meaning, and for redemption, and he invites us to explore with him.
His is a search for time that was stolen, a search for his own self, and a search for a beloved family member who initially did not want to be found.”
