Friday Finds: Excerpt from ‘Shatila Stories’

The magazine Refinery 29 has published an extract from Shatila Stories, a commissioned novel that was written by nine Syrian and Palestinian refugees, edited by Suhir Helal, translated by Nashwa Gowanlock, and published by Peirene Press:

It opens:

Chaos everywhere. Thundering sounds rip through my ears. I blink and blink again. I take snapshots with my eyes. Racing feet, dragging feet; old people, young people; cars of different colours, of different shapes; grey sky, swaying trees. Hundreds, thousands are waiting at the closed gate, paperwork in hand, hoping to pass through. They want to cross the border. A scene worthy of the Day of Reckoning. Worry and fear are paramount. A pallor has settled across everyone’s face, no matter how dark or fair their complexion. Desperate eyes.

You can keep reading at Refinery 29, and you can also meet the nine writers in this YouTube interview: