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Reviews tagging 'Racism'
Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, Mike Merryman-Lotze
4 reviews
laurareads87's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
sad
medium-paced
Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire is a collection of writings by Palestinian authors. It is extraordinarily diverse in terms of genre, including scholarly essays, poetry, first-person autobiographical narratives, and more. Informative, deeply impactful, and urgent. Reading this book right now - in early 2024, so soon after the murder of contributing author Refaat Alareer - is devastating.
As the introduction notes, this book "is an attempt to put into words certain aspects of the Palestinian experience in and around Gaza that have been ignored, underrepresented, and dismissed" as well as an "attempt to break the intellectual blockade and the political exclusion of Palestinian voices." Thank you Haymarket Books for making this collection freely available.
Content warnings: colonialism, violence, racism, war, grief, police brutality, murder, forcible confinement, gun violence
As the introduction notes, this book "is an attempt to put into words certain aspects of the Palestinian experience in and around Gaza that have been ignored, underrepresented, and dismissed" as well as an "attempt to break the intellectual blockade and the political exclusion of Palestinian voices." Thank you Haymarket Books for making this collection freely available.
Content warnings: colonialism, violence, racism, war, grief, police brutality, murder, forcible confinement, gun violence
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Gun violence, Murder, Racism, War, Grief, Confinement, Violence, and Police brutality
ska1224's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Police brutality, Xenophobia, Gun violence, Racism, Classism, Islamophobia, Violence, War, Murder, and Grief
letsgolesbians's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
spent most of the last day of 2023 reading this wonderful book. i loved the format and layout of this book, a collection of prose, poetry, personal essays, and informational essays with a photo between each piece; my brain often feels like a pinball machine, fast and noisy and chaotic, and jumping from a poem to a photo to an essay to a photo to learning about architecture to a photo really worked for me.
any adjectives i try to use will fail to capture how i felt about this book—interesting, enraging, sad, empowering. all the words i think when i watch videos by bissan and motaz and hind every day. there are three pieces in particular i want to mention:
❤️ lost identity: the tale of peasantry and nature by asmaa abu mezied, about agrarian practices and place attachment. recommend for anyone who enjoyed braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer
🖤 exporting oranges and short stories: cultural struggle in the gaza strip, by mosab sbu toha, looking at books and literature, libraries, art, cinema, and other cultural works of palestine. recommend for readers, book fans, and people angry about book banning in the us
🤍 in the haze of fifty-one days by dorgham abusalim, a personal essay by a gay gazan man during the massacre summer of 2014
💚 and of course, i cannot write about this book without mentioning refaat alareer’s gaza asks: when shall this pass, may he rest in power
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Colonisation, Racism, and Death
thewordsdevourer's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
light in gaza offers a relevatory look into gaza, its history, present, future and inhabitants, both from inside the area and those in the diaspora. i esp appreciate how the authors of the various essays included in the book each focus on a different aspect of the occupation and resistance, examining the past and present with their implications, as well as imagining a better future.
while im not at all knowledgable abt certain topics explored - such AI and architecture - they are nevertheless enlightening and offer a truly unique, fresh perspective. i also particularly enjoy learning abt the deep bond between palestinians and their land thru peasantry, and the importance of humanitarianism that instead focuses on liberation and return. this is def a collection to be read and learned from, straight from palestinians themselves.
while im not at all knowledgable abt certain topics explored - such AI and architecture - they are nevertheless enlightening and offer a truly unique, fresh perspective. i also particularly enjoy learning abt the deep bond between palestinians and their land thru peasantry, and the importance of humanitarianism that instead focuses on liberation and return. this is def a collection to be read and learned from, straight from palestinians themselves.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Violence, Police brutality, Colonisation, Racism, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Death, Murder, Genocide, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, and Child death
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