Daybreak in Gaza
Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture
Price range: £9.99 through £14.99
- ISBN
- Select an edition
- Pages
- 336
- Published
- October 2024
- Illustrations
- 41 b&w illustrations, 1 map
About the Book
‘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 is Gaza – a place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry. A place now utterly devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught, its heritage destroyed.
Daybreak in Gaza is a record of an extraordinary place and people, and of a culture preserved by the people themselves. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers and teachers offer stories of love, life, loss and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza’s cultural landscape and the breadth of its history.
Daybreak in Gaza humanises the people dismissed as statistics. It stands as a mark of resistance to the destruction and as a testament to the people of Gaza.
About the Contributors
Mahmoud Muna Editor
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 Editor
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.
Juliette Touma Editor
Juliette Touma is Director of Communications for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, covering Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. She has extensive experience in crisis communications and emergency response, and has served as Head of Communications at the UN Development Programme in Baghdad, Chief Spokesperson to the UN Special Envoy for Syria and Regional Chief of Advocacy and Communications for the Middle East and North Africa at UNICEF. Touma travels frequently to Gaza from UNRWA’s headquarters in Amman, Jordan.
Jayyab Abusafia Editor
Jayyab Abusafia is a London-based journalist from Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza. He was formerly Sky News Arabia’s senior reporter in London and a senior news presenter at Alghad TV. In Gaza, Abusafia worked as a radio presenter and a fixer/producer for global media including BBC, Channel 4 UK, Radio Canada and the Chicago Tribune. He was a nominee for Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Awards.
Reviews
‘An extraordinary, vital, urgent book.’ The Guardian
‘This is a book that carries the promise of a new day, or a dawning – a book that looks forward, but does so also by looking back over 4,000 years of history. [Daybreak in Gaza] is a collection of brave, resilient, heartbreaking, defiant, scared stories. … If this extraordinary volume tells us anything, it is that Gaza and Palestine will endure, the monuments will be restored and one day Palestinians will again watch the day break in peace.’ The Spectator
‘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
‘A love letter to Gaza. A heartbreaking testament to the beauty and courage of Palestinian people in the face of extraordinary brutality.’ Isabella Hammad
‘Daybreak in Gaza is a brilliant collection of voices, brimming over with wit and intelligence.’ Ken Loach
‘Daybreak in Gaza combines eyewitness accounts with poems and photographs … Doctors, shopkeepers and farmers have contributed, as well as writers and poets ... Part of the book’s appeal lies in its liberal definition of “culture” – there is even a recipe for fogaiyya, which Gazans eat in winter.’ Lindsey Hilsum, The Times Literary Supplement
Awards
- Palestine Book Awards 2025 (Shortlisted)
