crothe77 's review for:

Letters from Gaza by Mohammed Al-Zaqzooq, Mahmoud Alshaer

5.0

informative

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Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Letters From Gaza collected by Mahmoud Alshaer and Mohammed Al-Zaqzooq is a nonfiction anthology of translated letters and poems written by Palestinians in Gaza documenting the genocide that is happening in their homeland. 

This is the kind of work that I really struggle to give a star rating to. Not because I don’t find it meaningful or impactful, but because I really struggle to give a star rating to something documenting human suffering like this. I just feel it misses the point entirely. The main reason I’m giving it a star rating is because that’s something people do look for when deciding to pick up a work and I think this anthology is far too important to get lost in the noise of everything else or to be forgotten by history. As stated in the forward, Palestine was known for short stories in order to avoid censorship, but now these individuals are stating clearly and explicitly what is happening. 

There’s a very famous quote about how we mourn one death but a million deaths is just a statistic. Unfortunately, I think there is some truth to that quote and I think this anthology combats it wonderfully. Every single piece is accompanied by a bio detailing the life of the writer, their other published works, and, in some,  what they’re doing now. It humanizes them further and gives a face, a life, a name to these words. I cried multiple times while reading this and I do believe that the bios played a part in how hard it was hitting me. 

Two of the common features of the letters that make me feel this is a must read are 1) the mentions of social media and mobile phones and 2) the disruption of education, life, love, and happiness. It is so easy for many of us to just buy into this idea that countries outside of our own are less developed or, in the near future, accept a larger distance from what happened than there actually is. We do that already by having images of the Civil Rights Movement in black and white instead of in full color, which we absolutely could be circulating instead. It reminds the reader constantly that this is a modern event that is on-going no matter how uncomfortable that might make us. 

Content warning for death and genocide

I would recommend this to anyone who has even a passing interest in supporting Palestinians