Gaza - by Fatima Bhutto & Sonia Faleiro (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Gaza: The Story of a Genocide is an urgent and powerful collection of personal testimony, poetry, photography, art, and frontline reportage. Together, these works bear witness to the vast and ongoing destruction in­flicted on the Palestinian people--their lives, their land, and their future.

Ahmed Alnaouq recounts the devastating loss of twenty-one family members. Noor Alyacoubi offers a searing reflection on starvation. Mariam Barghouti examines the brutality of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, while Eman Bashir describes the phenomenon of a "wounded child, no surviving family." These voices, among many others, illuminate the endur­ing psychological, physical, and generational toll of state violence.

With contributions from recipients of the Palestine Book Award, Arab American Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, Emmy Award, National Book Award, and Gandhi Peace Award, this collection also honors the late poet Hiba Abu Nada--killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home in Khan Younis, Gaza, on October 20, 2023.

Review Quotes

"An absolutely vital compendium of intellectual and emotional scholarship about not only the ongoing grotesquerie of crimes committed against the Palestinian people, but the very nature of colonialism and apartheid. There is so much incisive, fearless and honest writing here, but also immense beauty of language, immense humanity. This is a landmark anthology"
--Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

"This book offers a glimpse into the way this genocide is changing who we are as Palestinians and the way that it is molding our view of ourselves and of the world around us. The Nakba of 1948 was a formative point in the development of modern Palestinian identity. Even for the Palestinians born after the Nakba, we were raised to see this event as the worst moment of our lives and that we as individuals and as a people should strive to overturn that catastrophic moment. The genocide in Gaza is a historical event of equal magnitude that will reshape Palestinian identity for generations to come."
--Ghassan Abu-Sittah, co-author of Reconstructing the War Injured Patient

"This absorbing collection uses--to remarkable effect--a variety of forms and voices to convey the devastating reality of Gaza."
--Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire

"This book comes at a time when so many feel there are no more words left to describe the second Nakba unfolding in Gaza. Yet every writer in these pages reminds us that there are words still to speak, and silence is not an option. Enraged, defiant, mournful, and yes, hopeful, the writings in Gaza shed light on a world devouring itself with astonishing cruelties. To read this magnificent, wide-ranging book is an act of reclamation of the dead, of the still living, and those yet to be born in Gaza."
--Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, finalist for the Booker Prize

"The horror is real. As this book shows, so is the commitment to fighting it."
--Benjamin Moser, author of Sontag: Her Life and Work

About the Author

Fatima Bhutto's books include the novels The Runaways and The Shadow of The Crescent Moon, longlisted for the Women's Prize and winner of the 2014 Prix de la Romanciere. Her non-fiction books include Songs of Blood and Sword and New Kings of the World. She is the co-founder, with Sonia Faleiro and Julia Churchill, of Books for Gaza.

Sonia Faleiro is the author of The Good Girls, nominated for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the ALCS Gold Dagger for Nonfiction, and the Premio Feltrinelli, and Beautiful Thing, shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage. She is the founder of the literary mentorship program South Asia Speaks and co-founder of Books for Gaza. Based in London, she is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow.