Raja Shehadeh studied law in London. His grandfather, Saleem, was a judge in the courts of the British Mandate of Palestine. His great-great-uncle, the journalist Najib Nassar, founded the Haifa-based newspaper Al-Karmil in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, before World War I. His father, Aziz, also a lawyer, was one of the first Palestinians to publicly support a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Shehadeh is from a Palestinian Christian family.

Shehadeh is a founder of the human rights organization, Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. He has written several books on international law, human rights and the Middle East. Strangers in the House was described by The Economist as "distinctive and truly impressive", In 2008, he won the Orwell Prize, Britain's pre-eminent award for political writing, for his book Palestinian Walks. 

THE ORWELL PRIZE 2008