In April 2002, the Israeli army reoccupied Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters. A tank blocked Raja Shehadeh's road; Israeli soldiers seized his brother's home and used him as a human shield during a search, as his frightened wife and children watched. When the Birds Stopped Singing reveals the rage and terror of daily life in these dire circumstances, showing how time passes for people imprisoned in their own homes, how they cope with being forbidden to cross the neighborhood to help a sick relative or dying friend. A chronicle of lives that somehow endure under impossible circumstances, Shehadeh's diary is a compelling and important document of a problem that seems increasingly beyond solution.