“Writing has become a kind of loud protest against what is happening and a way to survive and continue life amidst all this death and destruction.”
Nasser Rabah, poet
Yesterday I wrote about this week being designated as Read Palestine Week. During this week Publishers for Palestine are offering Palestinian e-books free of charge. I’ve written a number of posts about Palestinian poets.
Read Palestine Week: Finding Falasten, A guide to researching Palestine is a free online event happening today.
On December 3, at 1 p.m. PST / 4 p.m. EST / 9 p.m. UK, Publishers for Palestine will host a READ PALESTINE WEEK informational session on FINDING FALASTEEN: A Guide to Researching Palestine. Come to learn about the rich reservoir of resources available about Palestine! We will also discuss how many libraries and academic institutions have remained silent and impeded the flow of knowledge about Palestine.
With Lena Mubsutina is a college librarian and author. Her novel Amreekiya is an Arab American Book Award winner and was named one of Foreword‘s Four Phenomenal Debuts in 2018 as well as being shortlisted for the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. Her article “The First of its Kind: Collection Development Techniques for the Vasche Library’s Modern Assyrian Heritage Collection” was published in Collection Management journal.
To get readers started, members of the Publishers for Palestine collective are offering over 20 Palestine-related e-books in several languages for free download during the week-long event. The collective has also released a free digital chapbook titled And Still We Write: Recent Work By Palestinian Poets and Actions You Can Take to Stop Genocide Now. The publication includes works from nine Palestinian poets alongside artwork and resources to help readers “throw [sand] on the gears of genocide,” to paraphrase poet Rasha Abdulhadi, who is quoted in the chapbook’s introduction. Asmaa Dwaima, one of the writers featured in the chapbook, told Truthout the book “reflects the creative abilities of Gaza’s youth, our talent in writing stories and poetry, and our desire for the world to know us through our works.”
“My Pen Is My Weapon Against the Occupation”: Palestinian writers resist Israel’s genocide by Marianne Dhenin, truthout, Nov 7, 2024
An integral part of the ongoing genocide is Israel’s attacks on Palestine’s history and culture. In Gaza, that has manifested in the assassinations of Palestinian journalists, scholars and poets, and the decimation of education infrastructure and cultural and historical sites. Poets and other culture workers in Gaza have had their lives “turned upside down,” Dwaima told Truthout. “Many of us lack even the simplest tools to create, like a quiet space, pen and paper, or access to electricity or the internet.”
“I write because my pen is my weapon against the occupation.”
With no reliable internet connection or electricity in the besieged Gaza Strip, poets like Dwaima and Nasser Rabah, who is also featured in the new chapbook, told Truthout that they must walk long distances to reach solar charging points for their devices and transmit their works outside of Gaza. Rabah called it a “Sisyphean” task.
For Rabah, who has been sheltering in a shell of his home in the Maghazi Refugee Camp in Deir al-Balah since Israeli forces razed the neighborhood in December 2023 and January 2024, writing used to be a private project. Now, he told Truthout, “Writing has become a kind of loud protest against what is happening and a way to survive and continue life amidst all this death and destruction. Wartime writing is the voice of the martyrs, the wounded and the displaced. Therefore, it has become a national responsibility and a duty, no longer an individual, personal act.” He said he now writes “with the sound of bombing planes, roaring tanks and Apache gunfire mixed with the screams of ambulances and the crying of the bereaved and the grieving.”
Beyond engaging with writing from Palestinian authors and learning about Palestine, calls to action in the And Still We Write chapbook include joining the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. That campaign was launched in 2004 and is part of the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is led by Palestinian civil society groups and aims to exert nonviolent pressure on Israel to end its occupation.
“Writing has become a kind of loud protest against what is happening and a way to survive and continue life amidst all this death and destruction.”
“My Pen Is My Weapon Against the Occupation”: Palestinian writers resist Israel’s genocide by Marianne Dhenin, truthout, Nov 7, 2024
unflinching 