Release of Atef Abu Saif’s 2023 Memoir ‘Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide’

DECEMBER 27, 2023 Publisher Comma Press — which previously brought out Atef Abu Saif’s acclaimed The Drone Eats With Me — yesterday published a new memoir by the award-winning author, titled Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide. 

In the book, Abu Saif chronicles his daily life after the October 7 surprise attack on Israeli military and civilians by Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigades, which led to “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.” These journal entries have been occasionally serialized in The New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde and elsewhere. In this book, the publisher writes, “the complete, unedited diaries show the journey of a man who arrived in Gaza just a few days before October 7 as a government minister and ended the period, like most other Palestinians, living in a tent in a refugee camp.”

The foreword, by Chris Hedges, opens:

There are scores of Palestinian writers, journalists, and photographers, many of whom have been killed in the Israeli attacks on Gaza, who are determined to make us see and feel the horror of this genocide. They, in the end, will vanquish the lies told by the killers.

All proceeds from this book will go to four charities: Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, New Horizons Children’s Centre (Nusseirat Refugee Camp) and Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

At present, the book is available through the Comma Press website and Amazon (US, UK).