This episode features writing from and about Gaza, and explores the imperative to write, between hope and hopelessness, at a time when words both seem to count enormously and to not be enough. 

Show Notes

This episode’s cover art is by Chema Peral @chema_peral

Letter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani was written in 1956.

Mahmoud Darwish’s Silence for the Sake of Gaza is part of his 1973 collection Journal of an Ordinary Grief. 

The poet Mosab Abu Toha has written about his arrest and his family’s voyage out of Gaza

Atef Abu Seif’s “Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide” is forthcoming from Comma Press

Fady Jouda’s poetry collection [...] is forthcoming from Milkweed Press

You can read poetry in translation by Salim al-Naffar and Hiba Abu Nada, both killed under Israeli bombardment, at ArabLit. Other magazines that have been translating and sharing Palestinian poetry include Mizna, Fikra, LitHub, The Baffler, and Protean magazine.

The book that was removed from the curriculum in Newark is the book Sonia Nimr co-wrote with Elizabeth Laird, A Little Piece of Ground. 

Ghassan Hages’ essay “Gaza and the Coming Age of the Warrior” asks: “Is it ethical to write something ‘interesting’ about a massacre as the massacre is unfolding?”

Andrea Long Chu’s essay “The Free Speech Debate is a Trap” calls for “fighting with words.”

At the end of the episode, Basman Eldirawi  reads his poem “Santa” in honor of Refaat Alareer, an educator and poet who was killed on December 7. 

#ReadforRefaat is part of a week of action being called for by the Publishers for Palestine collective.  

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