Free Palestine Reading List for November 29 – December 5, 2024

The following ebooks — by Palestinian writers, about Palestinian history, and about organizing for a free Palestine — are free for the duration of Read Palestine Week 2024, from November 29 – December 5. As you read, we encourage you to participate in #ReadPalestineWeek events, take action, refuse complicity in Israeli literary institutions, practice BDS, and get in the gears of genocide.

MORE WAYS YOU CAN TAKE ACTION NOW.

Categories: Poetry | Fiction | Literary Nonfiction | Literary Anthologies | Palestinian Lives | Palestine & Global Politics | Palestinian History | Organizing, Resistance, and Solidarity for a Free Palestine

POETRY

The Flirtation of Girls / Ghazal el-Banat, by Sara M Saleh. (University of Queensland Press, 2023). ISBN: 9780702266287. (English)

With her first full-length poetry collection, Sara M Saleh introduces us to the polychromatic lives of girls and women as they come into being amidst war, colonial and patriarchal violence, and exile and migration. This searing work interrogates and represents the complexity of Arab-Australian Muslim women’s identities as they negotiate an irresistible world full of music and family, grit and grief, and love and loss. Saleh’s poetry is not only an inherently political act, but a deeply personal one, charged with multilayered conversations and meditations amongst three generations of women in Sara’s family. Her poems dazzle with an incantatory force of spirit, survival and selfhood, proving without a doubt that Saleh is one of this country’s most compelling, contemporary poets.

Get The Flirtation of Girls / Ghazal el-Banat here.

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Why So Few Women on the Street at Night, by Sarona Abuaker. (the87press, 2021). ISBN:  9781739954703. (English)

A searing and multi-form debut from Palestinian human rights activist and theorist Sarona Abuaker. Complete with images from performance pieces, essays, fragments of theory and notebooks, these are poems that engage the reader in thinking about liberation.

Get Why So Few Women on the Street at Night here.

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Palestine Wail, by Yahia Lababidi. (Daraja Press, 2024). ISBN:  9781998309115. (English)

Palestine is personal for writer, Yahia Lababidi. His Palestinian grandmother, Rabiha Dajani — educator, activist & social worker — was forced to flee her ancestral home in Jerusalem, at gunpoint, some eighty years ago. In Palestine Wail, he reminds us that religion is not politics, Judaism is not Zionism, and to criticize the immoral, illegal actions of Israel is not antisemitism. The collection, described as a love letter to Gaza, draws inspiration from the rich literary tradition of Palestinian resistance literature. Lababidi, known for his critically-acclaimed books of aphorisms, essays, and poetry, brings his unique voice to this personal, political and spiritual work.

Get Palestine Wail here.

FICTION

Qissat: Short Stories by Palestinian Women, ed. Jo Glanville. (Saqi Books, 2006). IBSN: 9781846591549. (English)

These fascinating and diverse stories reflect the everyday concerns of Palestinians living under occupation. Writers who were children during the first intifada appear alongside those who remember the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war. They offer compassionate, often critical, insight into their society in times of hardship and turmoil, drawing upon the warmth of human relations and the hope that better times will come. It’s a rare showcase of Palestinian women writers across the generations. Some of the stories appear in English for the first time, including ‘Dust’ by the award-winning young novelist Adania Shibli. Contributors include authors from Gaza and Ramallah, and writers from the United States, Jordan and the Gulf.

Get Qissat: Short Stories by Palestinian Women here.

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Le parfum de Nour, by Yara El-Ghadban. (Mémoire d’encrier, 2015). IBSN: 9782897123307. (French)

Le parfum de Nour intertwines personal and collective histories, exploring themes of exile, love, and loss against the backdrop of war. The story centers on three main characters—Nour, Leila, and Bennett—whose lives are shaped by the ghosts of their pasts and the scars of their present. The novel is set between London and the war-torn landscapes of Gaza. Nour’s encounters with Leila and Bennett reveal the intricate ways in which love, war, and survival are entangled. At the heart of Le parfum de Nour is a deep exploration of resilience—the way that passion, love, and human connection can be both a source of salvation and a means of survival in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Get Le parfum de Nour here.

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Beside the Sickle Moon: A Palestinian Story, by Thaer Husien. (Daraja Press, 2024). IBSN: 9781998309290. (English)

Beside the Sickle Moon is set in the near future and explores Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The story tells a first-person narrative through Laeth Awad, a Palestinian who lives above his convenience store and passes the days with his cousin Aylul. One night upon returning to their village from Ramallah they encounter an Israeli checkpoint within the buffer zone that hadn’t been there before. It isn’t long until the two stumble upon Israel’s plans to construct a luxury hotel for incoming settlers, Ma’al Luz. Demolition crews and military personnel are due to fulfill this contract in the months to come and with them as overseer is the infamous Meir Cohen, a Mossad operative who played a key role in the fall of Gaza.

Get Beside the Sickle Moon here.

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Out of Time: The Collected Stories of Samira Azzam, by Samira Azzam, translated by Ranya Abdelrahman. (ArabLit Books, 2022). IBSN: 979-8362585235. (English)

Samira Azzam (1927–1967) was one of the leading Palestinian writers of the twentieth century. Yet after her death, her work fell into a half-shadow, in which she was acknowledged as great, but not quite canonized. In a 2018 article on the Palestinian short story, the critic Faisal Darraj says it plainly: “Azzam has not yet received the accolades she deserves.” This translated collection — full of her vivid snapshots of life in Palestine and Lebanon in the first half of the twentieth century — is a start at giving Samira Azzam a few of the accolades she deserves.

Get Out of Time here.

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“In the Future, We Can Go Back Home,” from Thyme Travellers, by Sara Solara. (Fernwood Publishing, 2024). 9781773636948. (English)

Thyme Travellers collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction as a genre invites a reconfiguring of reality, and here each story is a portal into realms of history, folklore and futures.

Building on the work of trailblazing anthologies such as Reworlding Ramallah and Palestine +100, this volume is the first of its kind in Canada. Editor Sonia Sulaiman brings together stories by speculative fiction veterans and emerging writers from Australia to Egypt, Lebanon to Canada.  

Get “In the Future, We Can Go Back Home” here.

LITERARY NONFICTION

Cactus Pear For My Beloved, by Samah Sabawi. (Penguin Random House, 2024). IBSN: 9781761344985. (English)

Samah Sabawi shares the story of her parents and many like them who were born as their parents were being forced to leave their homelands. The story of a family over the past 100 years, starting in Palestine under British rule and ending in Redland Bay in Queensland.

Get Cactus Pear For My Beloved here.

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All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo. (Jaded Ibis Press, 2023). IBSN: 9781938841248. (English)

Life changes forever for six-year-old Nada when Iraq’s invasion of her birth country of Kuwait pushes her mother to immigrate with her to the United States. Just as she finally settles into her strange new existence apart from her father in Rhode Island, learns English, and grasps the fact that she is there to stay, Nada begins discovering revelation after revelation that changes her perspective on her world and family. With an imaginative blend of folklore and history that explores the relationship between our bodies, ancestors, and the lands that hold us, All Water Has Perfect Memory is a memoir that takes readers through the author’s ancestral origins-the coast of Palestine, Kuwait, and the shores of Rhode Island- and explores generations of silence and eventually, connection.

Get All Water Has Perfect Memory here.

LITERARY ANTHOLOGIES

And Still We Write, ed. Publishers for Palestine (Publishers for Palestine, 2024). (English, some Arabic)

For Read Palestine Week (Nov. 29-December 5) 2024, we are releasing a new publication, And Still We Write: Recent work by Palestinian poets & actions you can take to stop genocide now. Publishers for Palestine have come together to create this free booklet of poetry, prose, artwork, and resources for action, now available for online dissemination and coming in print. Please read and share as widely as you please — this will always be free.

Get And Still We Write here.

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El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities, ed. Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and Samia Marshy (Metonymy Press, 2024). ISBN: 9781998898022. (English, some Arabic)

El Ghourabaa is an Arab and Arabophone anthology brimming with gems by emerging and established writers, and an homage to the lineages and complexities of queer Arab life. Multi-genre, multi-generational, and global, El Ghourabaa is an enigma, a delight, and a contribution to an ongoing conversation and creative outpouring. In addition to editors Samia Marshy and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, contributors include: Etel Adnan, Rabih Alameddine, Joe Kadi, Marlin M. Jenkins, Leila Marshy, Trish Salah, Olivia Tapiero, Nour Symon, Yehia Anas Sabaa, Nofel, Hoda Adra, Ralph Haddad, Seif Siddiq, Karim Kattan, Andrea Abi-Karam, Bazeed, George Abraham, Sarah O’Neal, Micaela Kaibni Raen, Nour Kamel, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Naja Kassir, and Barrak Alzaid. Plus a foreword by Sherine Elbanhawy.

Get El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities here.

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We Wrote in Symbols, ed. Selma Dabbagh. (Saqi Books, 2021). ISBN: 9780863564956. (English)

It is a little-known secret that Arabic literature has a long tradition of erotic writing. Behind that secret lies another – that many of the writers are women. We Wrote in Symbols celebrates the works of 75 of these female writers of Arab heritage who articulate love and lust with artistry and skill. Here, a wedding night takes an unexpected turn beneath a canopy of stars; a woman on the run meets her match in a flirtatious encounter at Dubai Airport; and a carnal awakening occurs in a Palestinian refugee camp. From a masked rendezvous in a circus, to meetings in underground bars and unmade beds, there is no such thing as a typical sexual encounter, as this electrifying anthology shows.

Get We Wrote in Symbols here.

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Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze (Haymarket Books, 2022) ISBN: 9781642597257. (English)

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.

Get Light in Gaza here.

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Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!, ed. Mahmoud Shaer and Mohamed al-Zaqzouq. (ArabLit Books, 2023). ISBN: 979-8324869151. (English)

In this special collection, ArabLit and Gaza’s Majalla 28 come together to publish words and art from Gaza. In the face of immense death and loss, the brutal and inhumane destruction of cultural and academic infrastructure, and the utter callousness of those in power, co-editors Mohammed Zaqzooq and Mahmoud Al-Shaer have collected essays, poems, and life-and-death reflections by writers living in Gaza that speak to their lives between October 2023 and March 2024. We also have work that expands our vision of Gaza, looking back as far as ancient Egypt.

Get Gaza! Gaza! Gaza! here.

NONFICTION: PALESTINIAN LIVES

Gaza: this side and the other side of the border, by Frank Smith, translated by Saeeda Sadat Seyed Kabuli, Massoud Sanjrani. (Iran-Mashhad- Publications Behnashr, 2014). ISBN: 9789640221549. (Farsi/Persian)

Gaza: this side and the other side of the border is a book that deals with the events of the bloody war “Operation Molten Lead” in Gaza based on the documentary reports of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission in the Gaza War. This book, written in French by Frank Smith and translated by Masoud Sanjrani and Saeeda Seyed Kabali, introduces the crimes, massacres, and tortures committed against Palestinians to the reader with reasons and documentary evidence. The importance of the book originates from the fact that the author of this work is neither an Arab nor a Muslim but is based in his mission. He sat down to recount the documented events that affected the minds of the world, and that is why this book will leave tremendous effects all over the world.

Get Gaza: this side and the other side of the border here.

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Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine, by Wasseem El Sarraj. (Daraja Press, 2022). ISBN: 9781990263378. (English)

This is a biography of the life of Dr Eyad El Sarraj, Gaza’s pioneering psychiatrist and founder of the Gaza Community Mental Healthcare Programme, written by his son, Wasseem El Sarraj. It is also a history of Palestine with a focus on Gaza. Eyad’s life was intimately intertwined with Palestine’s struggles so his choices and reactions reflected many of the major historical moments of the last 70 years. The book is an effort to provide a perspective on how the forces around him impacted his life, and how he took control of what he could achieve in an intractable situation. The book is interspersed with Wasseem’s own reflections as a mixed-race Palestinian, and as someone who has lived under occupation in Gaza.

Get Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine here.

NONFICTION: PALESTINE & GLOBAL POLITICS

Palestine in a World on Fire, ed. Katherine Natanel and Ilan Pappé. (Haymarket, 2024). ISBN: 9798888902585. (English)

A collection of interviews with some of the world’s leading progressive thinkers on the movement for Palestinian liberation and its connections to struggles for justice across the globe.

Get Palestine in a World on Fire here.

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After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine, ed. Antony Loewenstein, Ahmed Moor. (Saqi Books, 2024). ISBN: 9780863567391. (English)

After Zionism brings together some of the world’s leading thinkers on the most pressing issue of our time. In essays that challenge our assumptions, distinguished contributors with distinct and divergent perspectives dissect the century-long conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians. Time has run out for the two-state solution because of the unending and permanent Israeli colonisation of Palestinian land. The Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent devastation of Gaza have given renewed urgency to the discussion. After Zionism explores possible forms of a one-state solution and a future that honours and respects the rights of all who live in Palestine and Israel.

Get After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine here.

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Environmental Warfare in Gaza, by Shourideh C. Molavi. (Pluto Press, 2024). ISBN: 9780745344577. (English)

A vivid document of environmental Israeli warfare on fertile Palestinian lands, deepening our understanding of its impact as a form of settler-colonial violence.

Get Environmental Warfare in Gaza here.

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Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm, by Jamie Stern-Weiner. (O/R Books, 2024). ISBN: 9781682196199. (English)

In September 2023, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan claimed the Middle East was “quieter” than in decades. A week later, Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge shattered this illusion, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking hundreds hostage. Israel’s retaliation devastated Gaza, killing nearly 30,000 people in four months, including over 12,000 children, and destroying more than 60 percent of homes. This unprecedented violence marked a historic turning point in the Israel-Palestine conflict, sparking global protests and exposing deep political fractures. In this groundbreaking book—the first published about the 2023 Gaza war—leading Palestinian, Israeli, and international authorities put these momentous developments in context and provide an initial taking-stock.

Get Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm here.

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Third World Approaches to International Law: Writings on Palestine, 2019-2023, by Noura Erakat, Victor Kattan, Steven Salaita, Ata R. Hindi, Shahd Hammouri et al (TWAIL Review, 2023) ISBN: 978-1138040724. (English)

A compilation of writings on Palestine from anti-colonial legal and intellectual perspectives. The collection includes essays, academic articles, interviews, personal reflections and solidarity statements, written mostly by Palestinian authors and published by the Third World Approaches to International Law Review journal and website. 

Get Third World Approaches to International Law here.

NONFICTION: Palestinian History

Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters, by Helena Cobban and Rami G. Khouri. (OR Books, 2024). IBSN: 9781682196342 (English.)

Understanding Hamas does not advocate for or against Hamas. Rather, in a series of rich and probing conversations with leading experts, it aims to deepen understanding of a movement that is a key player in the current crisis. It looks at, among other things, Hamas’s critical shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement; the delicate balance between Hamas’s political and military wings; and its transformation from early anti-Jewish tendencies to a stance that differentiates between Judaism and Zionism.

Both accessible and authoritative, Understanding Hamas provides much-needed insight into a widely misunderstood movement whose involvement in a just resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict will be critical.

Get Understanding Hamas here.

NONFICTION: Organizing, Resistance, and Solidarity for a Free Palestine

La justice est indivisible: La Palestine comme enjeu féministe, by Nada Elia. (Éditions du remue-ménage, 2024). (French)

Ce texte examine les facteurs mondiaux ayant contribué à un manque de soutien dans l’histoire du mouvement Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS), mouvement en faveur de la souveraineté du peuple palestinien. Le texte critique l’exclusion, par d’autres mouvements dits progressistes, notamment dans le Nord global, de la lutte palestinienne. Il cherche à renforcer la solidarité entre des communautés criminalisées. Enfin, il déclare que la liberté du peuple Palestinien est incomplète tant que toutes les communautés criminalisées ne seront pas libres.

This work examines global factors that contributed to a historic lack of support for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in support of Palestinian sovereignty. It calls out the exclusion of the Palestinian struggle from an otherwise progressive agenda, seeks solidarity amongst disenfranchised, criminalized communities, and declares that Palestinian freedom is incomplete until all criminalized communities are free.

Get La justice est indivisible: La Palestine comme enjeu féministe here.

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Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, by Omar Barghouti (Haymarket Books, 2011) ISBN: 9781608461158 (English)

Now, as awareness of the apartheid nature of the State of Israel continues to grow, Omar Barghouti, founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, presents a renewed call to action. Aimed at forcing the State of Israel to uphold international law and universal human rights for the Palestinian people, here is a manifesto for change.

Get Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions here.

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Decolonising the Palestinian Mind, by Haidar Eid, translated by the Manifest team. (Manifest, 2024). ISBN: 978-84-19719-72-0. Catalan.

Descolonitzant la ment palestina no tracta del darrer atac israelià sobre Gaza. És una crítica aguda als Acords d’Oslo, als territoris creats per l’imperialisme en nom de la solució dels dos Estats. També és un text, d’urgència, sobre la folklorització de la lluita i l’emancipació palestines, que han esdevingut una conducta habitual per part de les organitzacions històriques que lluiten per l’alliberament de Palestina. Haidar Eid es basa en l’obra d’Edward Said, a qui els palestins aprecien per la seva crítica implacable de la seva situació, per fer una crida per un canvi de consciència. Albira, des de les ruïnes de Gaza, un nou període d’amenaça sense precedents sobre la cultura, la identitat i el futur del poble palestí.

Decolonising the Palestinian Mind is not about the 2023 genocidal attack on Gaza. It is a sharp critique of the Oslo surrender, the Bantustans created by imperialism in the name of a two-state solution, and a recognition that the tokenisation of the Palestinian struggle and emancipation have become ordinary conduct on the part of organisations historically dedicated to the liberation of Palestine. Haidar Eid builds on the work of Edward Said, who Palestinians treasure for his relentless truth-telling of their realities. Decolonising the Palestinian Mind calls for a consciousness change in a new period of unprecedented pressure on Palestinian culture, identity, and futures.

Get Decolonising the Palestinian Mind here (Catalan)

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Weaponized Architecture. The Impossibility of Innocence, by Léopold Lambert. (dpr-barcelona, 2012). ISBN: 978-84-615-3702-0 (English)

This book is an examination of the inherent instrumentalization of architecture as a political weapon; and the research informs the development of a project which rather than defusing these characteristics, attempts to integrate them within the scene of a political struggle. The proposed project dramatizes, through its architecture, a Palestinian disobedience to the colonial legislation imposed on its legal territory. In fact, the State of Israel masters the elaboration of territorial and architectural colonial apparatuses that act directly on Palestinian daily lives. Weaponized Architecture is thus manifested as a Palestinian shelter, with an associated agricultural platform, which expresses its illegality through its architectural vocabulary.

Get Weaponized Architecture. The Impossibility of Innocence here.

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Upping the Anti on Palestine: 2006–2024, by Upping the Anti, et al. (Upping the Anti, 2024). (English)

A collection of political writing on Palestine and solidarity organizing in Canada and beyond.

Get Upping the Anti on Palestine: 2006–2024 here.

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Organizing for Palestine! A #ReadPalestineWeek Sampler. (Between the Lines, 2012-2020). (English)

Organizing for Palestine! provides inspiration from four books for solidarity action with the Palestinian people, including stories of student activism, art activism, and direct action, the history of the Toronto chapter of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and of BDS organizing in Montreal. From Turtle Island to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!

Get Organizing for Palestine! here.

MORE WAYS YOU CAN TAKE ACTION NOW.