Sumud: A New Palestinian Reader

ISBN: 1644214458

Author: Halasa, Malu

Condition: New

An anthology that celebrates the power of culture in Palestinian resistance, with selections of memoir, short stories, essays, book reviews, personal narrative, poetry, and art.Includes twenty-five black-and-white illustrations by Palestinian artists.The Arabic word sumud is often loosely translated as steadfastness or standing fast. It is, above all, a Palestinian cultural value of everyday perseverance in the face of Israeli occupation. Sumud is both a personal and collective commitment; people determine their own lives, despite the environment of constant oppressions imposed upon them.This anthology spans the 20th and 21st centuries of Palestinian cultural history, and highlights writing from 2021-2024. The collection of writing and art features work from forty-six contributors including:Dispatches from Hossam Madhoun, co-founder of Gaza's Theatre for Everybody, as he survives the post-October 2023 war on Gaza; Novelist Ahmed Masoud with Application 39, a sci-fi short story about a Dystopian bid for the Olympics; Sara Roy and Ivar Ekeland with The New Politics of Exclusion: Gaza as Prologue, an analysis of Israels divide and conquer policies of fragmentation; Historian Ilan Pappé with a review of Tahrir Hamdis book, Imagining Palestine, in which heunpacks the relationship between culture and resistance; Essayist Lina Mounzer with Palestine and the Unspeakable, an offering on the language used to dehumanize Palestinians; And poetry by the next generation of poets who have inherited the mantle of the late Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008).The essays, stories, poetry, art and personal narrative collected in Sumud: A New Palestinian Reader is a rich riposte to those who would denigrate Palestinians aspirations for a homeland. It also serves as a timely reminder of cultures power and importance during occupation and war.