Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture

Daybreak in Gaza captures the resilience of Gaza’s people and culture amidst devastation. Through the stories of artists, doctors, students, and more, it showcases the vibrant cultural landscape of a place often reduced to statistics. This poignant record stands as a testament to Gaza’s enduring spirit and resistance. These are stories you don''t read in the news. Recording them is an act of resistance against erasure. ‘An extraordinary, vital, urgent book.’ ‘A book about hope, anger and anguish.’ ‘This is a book that carries the promise of a new day, or a dawning – a book that looks forward, but does so also by looking back over 4,000 years of history. [Daybreak in Gaza] is a collection of brave, resilient, heartbreaking, defiant, scared stories. … If this extraordinary volume tells us anything, it is that Gaza and Palestine will endure, the monuments will be restored and one day Palestinians will again watch the day break in peace.’ ‘Daybreak in Gaza is therefore an important attempt to preserve a culture under attack and will be an early contribution to a body of literature that will likely be studied for decades to come.’ ‘Daybreak in Gaza seeks to push back against the dehumanization at the heart of the Gaza genocide by illuminating the human spirit of a place under attack.’ ‘[Daybreak in Gaza paints] a picture that eviscerates media stereotypes of Gaza as a valueless slum, offering heartwarming – and heartbreaking – glimpses of Palestinian humanity amid the horror.’

''Read this. It is brutal with human pain and still, beauty, and life. Defiant life. Resistance. And, bitterly, the injustice of it all. You cannot walk away from Daybreak in Gaza unchanged. It will break your heart; but our hearts need to be broken.''

‘A rich and moving record of a people and a geography that deserve so much more from the world’ ‘Compelling … Raw emotions infuse the pages of the book, featuring dozens of starkly intimate, firsthand reflections on the impact of war on innocent people … a culture is not reduced to rubble as easily as a mosque or marketplace. That is the most important and powerful message of this book.’ ''A call to recognize and honour the humanity of those who are all too often overlooked in the Western narrative.'' ‘Daybreak in Gaza combines eyewitness accounts with poems and photographs … Doctors, shopkeepers and farmers have contributed, as well as writers and poets ... Part of the book’s appeal lies in its liberal definition of “culture” – there is even a recipe for fogaiyya, which Gazans eat in winter.’

This is Gaza – a place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry. A place now utterly devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught, its heritage destroyed.

Daybreak in Gaza is a record of an extraordinary place and people, and of a culture preserved by the people themselves. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers and teachers offer stories of love, life, loss and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza’s cultural landscape and the breadth of its history.

Daybreak in Gaza humanises the people dismissed as statistics. It stands as a mark of resistance to the destruction and as a testament to the people of Gaza.

• | Author: Mahmoud Muna, Matthew Teller
• | Publisher: Saqi Books
• | Publication Date: Oct 03, 2024
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781849250696
• | ISBN-10: 1849250693