Daybreak in Gaza

About the Book

With Juliette Touma and Jayyab Abusafia

‘A city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land.’  Shamsaddin al-Dimashqi, geographer (1256–1327)

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 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 Contributors

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 has degrees in Media and Communication from the University of Sussex and King’s College London. He is active in many cultural initiatives across Palestine and 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 the literary magazine Granta.

Matthew Teller is a UK-based writer and broadcaster. He has written on the Middle East for the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times, Financial Times and other global media. He has produced documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and World Service and reported for From Our Own Correspondent. Teller is the author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City, which was a 2022 Telegraph Book of the Year, Rough Guide to Jordan and Quite Alone: Journalism from the Middle East 2008–2019.

Reviews

‘This astonishing book opened my eyes to the brutality that is being visited upon Gaza, and to the humanity of those suffering it. I hope we can all learn something – about steadfastness, about dignity – from them. Please read it.’
Brian Eno

‘A necessary, profoundly moving collection. At once a lyrical overview of a rich cultural landscape, and a devastating indictment of genocide, and of culture’s destruction.'
China Miéville

'Heartbreaking and inspiring. Daybreak in Gaza is a necessary, intelligent call to intellectual arms and proof that hope is still possible.'
Alberto Manguel

‘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

‘These authors’ lives have been utterly devastated, but we can preserve their vital voices. Daybreak in Gaza must be shared with the world.’
Fatima Bhutto