Light in Gaza

English language

Published Dec. 27, 2022 by Haymarket Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-64259-699-1
OCLC Number:: 1276775531

(1 review)

Imagining the future of Gaza beyond the cruelties of occupation and Apartheid, Light in Gaza is a powerful contribution to understanding Palestinian experience.

Gaza, home to two million people, continues to face suffocating conditions imposed by Israel. This distinctive anthology imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation.

Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.

2 editions

The Weaver Reads reviewed Light in Gaza by Jehad Abusalim

Goodreads Review of Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

4 stars

This is a fascinating collection of essays and short poems by a number of writers from Gaza.

After a riveting first chapter from Refaat Alareer (may he rest in peace), the first third of the book covers some personal stories and reflections: the use of cellphones, agriculture, temporality. The second third of the book leans into infrastructure: experimental residential design, electrification, AI as a tool for fighting the occupation, and more. The last third leans more into the social/cultural side of the Gazan experience, and I found it much more compelling. We hear about one author's attempt to build a public library in Gaza, as he tells us about film, journalism, theater, and more; another woman tells about the crushing weight of being left behind as her whole family moved to Egypt for a better life; one man tells his experience of the 2014 War; etc. The final chapter offers …

This is a fascinating collection of essays and short poems by a number of writers from Gaza.

After a riveting first chapter from Refaat Alareer (may he rest in peace), the first third of the book covers some personal stories and reflections: the use of cellphones, agriculture, temporality. The second third of the book leans into infrastructure: experimental residential design, electrification, AI as a tool for fighting the occupation, and more. The last third leans more into the social/cultural side of the Gazan experience, and I found it much more compelling. We hear about one author's attempt to build a public library in Gaza, as he tells us about film, journalism, theater, and more; another woman tells about the crushing weight of being left behind as her whole family moved to Egypt for a better life; one man tells his experience of the 2014 War; etc. The final chapter offers three possibilities for Gaza (and Palestine more broadly): the no-state solution, the two-state solution, and the one-state solution, and the author offers a riveting case for a multi-confessional, multi-ethnic, secular, and democratic Palestine. Between the chapters are poems and photographs.

The second third of the book, on infrastructure, gave me a much more human, detailed angle on what I hear about all the time: the collapse of material life in Gaza due to the genocide, although it felt much more slow-going than the rest of the book.

If there is one stand-out chapter, it's Israa Mohammed Jamal's "Let Me Dream": it's such a touching, emotionally driven piece of writing.

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