5 Books About Palestine by Palestinian Writers 🍉
and a substack i am learning so much from
Friends,
The recommendations below are the books I’ve enjoyed and learnt from recently, written by Palestinians about Palestine.
(translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette)
**all the trigger warnings before reading this book as it covers the brutal rape and murder of a young Palestinian woman by Israeli soldiers.**
Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba – the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people – and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.
Things I Left Behind - Shada Mustafa
(Translated from the Arabic by Nancy Roberts)
Palestinian author Shada Mustafa’s debut novel – a free-flowing narrative that interrogates, in short, direct sentences, all the memories of growing up – the trauma of her parents' divorce, the Qalandia checkpoint, falling in love – that keep forcing themselves out to be reckoned with before she can leave them behind. Shortlisted for the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Young Author.
The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction - 10 shorts stories edited by Atef Abu Saif
Written by Atef Abu Saif, Mona Abu Sharekh, Talal Abu Shawish, Zaki al ‘Ela, Yusra al Khatib, Asmaa al-Ghoul, Ghareeb Asqalani, Najlaa Ataallah, Nayrouz Qarmout & Abdallah Tayeh
(Translated from the Arabic by Tom Aplin, Charis Bredin, Emily Danby, Alexa Firat, Alice Guthrie, Katharine Halls, Sarah Irving, Elisabeth Jaquette, John Peate, Adam Talib, and Max Weiss.)
“Under the Israeli occupation of the '70s and '80s, writers in Gaza had to go to considerable lengths to ever have a chance of seeing their work in print. Manuscripts were written out longhand, invariably under pseudonyms, and smuggled out of the Strip to Jerusalem, Cairo or Beirut, where they then had to be typed up. Consequently, fiction grew shorter, novels became novellas, and short stories flourished as the city's form of choice. Indeed, to Palestinians elsewhere, Gaza became known as 'the exporter of oranges and short stories'.
This anthology brings together some of the pioneers of the Gazan short story from that era, as well as younger exponents of the form, with ten stories that offer glimpses of life in the Strip that go beyond the global media headlines; stories of anxiety, oppression, and violence, but also of resilience and hope, of what it means to be a Palestinian, and how that identity is continually being reforged; stories of ordinary characters struggling to live with dignity in what many have called 'the largest prison in the world'.”
(written in English, translated into Arabic by Amir Shaykhūnī under the title "Ḥarb al-miʼah ʻām ʻalaʹ Filisṭīn : qiṣat al-istiʻmār al-istīṭānī wa-al muqawimah 1917–2017" (حرب المئة عام على فلسطين: قصة الاستعمار الاستيطاني والمقاومة 1917–2017)).
I found this book recommended on the Decolonize Palestine recommended reading list. They also recommend the following books as a Palestinian introduction:
There’s a lot of history to absorb (100 years!) so it’s a heavy and somewhat depressing read, but I learnt so much about Britain’s role and their responsibility in causing the conflict in the region, Palestine, Israel, Zionism as a concept, settler colonialism, American imperialism and their unconditional support for Israel, land grabs and how it feels to live under occupation in what has been termed ‘the largest open air prison in the world’.
An incredibly necessary read if you’re tackling your own ignorance on the topic. Also an important read if you live in Britain as so much of the truth behind their colonisation as an empire is not taught in schools or openly discussed.
Gaza Weddings - Ibrahim Nasrallah
(Translated from the Arabic by Nancy Roberts)
Twin sisters Randa and Lamis live under the brutal occupation of the Gaza Strip. As neighbors, friends, and strangers are killed, one after another, their identities are blurred by death that strikes so randomly and without warning. Yet just as this terrible cycle continues, so too does the cycle of life. Randa, Lamis, and their friend Amna seek to affirm life, not just survive, by working, playing, loving, matchmaking, planning weddings, and looking to the future. People get married, children are born, and hope springs anew.
“Gaza strip, where people's dreams are as small as the skies above them, because they are not allowed to have big dreams.”
I’m finding Fariha Róisín’s posts on Substack incredibly well researched and informative. There is so much history that I never sought to understand about Israel and Palestine because I thought it was too ‘complicated’. Am grateful to Fariha for taking the time to share.
