Reading & discussion with Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller, editors of Daybreak in Gaza (Saqi Books) at Curious Fox books, Berlin.
‘A love letter to Gaza. A heartbreaking testament to the beauty and courage of Palestinian people in the face of extraordinary brutality.’
— Isabella Hammad
‘A most significant collection, one that frightens, awes and inspires, the timeliest of reminders of our common humanity and the irrepressible force of the written word.’
— Philippe Sands
About the Book: This was Gaza. A place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry. A place now pulverised and devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught.
Today, as its heritage is being destroyed, Gaza’s survivors preserve their culture through literature, music, stories and memories. Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture is a record of that heritage, revealing an extraordinary place and people. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers and teachers across the generations offer stories of love, life, loss and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza’s cultural landscape and the breadth of its history.
This remarkable book humanises the people dismissed as mere statistics and portrays lives full of joy and meaning. Daybreak in Gaza stands as a mark of resistance to the destruction, and as a testament to the people of Gaza.
About the Editors:
Mahmoud Muna is a writer, publisher and bookseller from Jerusalem, Palestine. He runs Jerusalem’s celebrated Educational Bookshop and the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel, both centres of the city’s literary scene. Muna writes regularly on culture and politics, with bylines in the London Review of Books and Jerusalem Quarterly, among others. He recently published the first-ever Arabic edition of Granta magazine.
Matthew Teller is a UK-based author and broadcaster writing on place and culture, with a special focus on Palestine and the wider Middle East. His 2022 book Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City was a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. Teller produces and presents documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and World Service, and reports for BBC Radio’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’. His journalism is published by the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times and Financial Times, among others. Teller is the author of Quite Alone: Journalism from the Middle East 2008–2019 and several travel guides, including the Rough Guide to Jordan.
Recorded 01.11.24
Edit : Adrian Shephard.
www.radio-on-berlin.com
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