Eight Publishers Bringing Out Gazan ‘Diary of a Genocide’ in 7 Languages

By ArabLit Staff

Political scientist and multi-award-winning novelist Gazan Atef Abu Saif — author of the moving The Drone Eats with Me, an account of the 2014 bombardment of Gaza — has a new book coming near-simultaneously from at least eight publishers in seven languages.

The book, Don’t Look Left: A Diary of a Genocide, is composed of diary-like reminiscences that offer a first-hand, day-by-day account of the bombardment and invasion of Gaza from a keen observer of the human condition.

Abu Saif is originally from Jabalia Camp, north of Gaza City, but moved to the West Bank in 2019 when he became the PA Minister of Culture. However, he was visiting Gaza in early October with his 15-year-old son Yasser when the decimating bombardment of Gaza began, in the wake of the October 7 killings and kidnappings.

Publisher Comma Press writes that, these diaries, many of which were written as WhatsApp texts and voice memos, “follow a man who came to Gaza as a government minister and who was quickly reduced to running through the streets looking for shelter, like so many other Gazans, after the hotel he was staying in was bombed. The accounts cover everything from first-hand reports of shockingly graphic rescue efforts — many involving close relatives or fellow journalists and writers — to living in UN shelters in schools, to being displaced multiple times, struggling to find food and maintain contact with the outside world, to the decision to leave his father in the north for his own son’s safety, as
well as living for over a month in a tent, an impromptu refugee camp in UN Stores facility near Rafah.”

Comma released an shorter, ebook-only version of the diaries in late December. This features the first 60 days of his experiences, while Atef was still living in a tent a Rafah. The final version will cover the first 85 days of the genocidal destruction of Gaza.

Eight publishers have so far signed up to publish the diaries this winter and spring in seven languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, Icelandic, and Portuguese.

When talking about their reasons for bringing out the book, several publishers mentioned the failure of most media to fairly document the last several months in Gaza, as well as our collective responsibility to do whatever we can to halt a genocide in progress. As Patrizia Di Filippo, of the Barcelona-based Blackie Books, said, “We wanted to be part of this because the Western media has no intention of going beyond the euphemism and calling it ‘war.’ And it is not a war, it is a genocide. An ethnic cleansing. We believe that we cannot sit still and observe, and we must help with what we know how to do, which are books.”

Read more:

Six Publishers on Why They’re Bringing Out ‘Don’t Look Left’

Recommended: To Read & to Translate by Gazan Writer Atef Abu Saif

An Excerpt from ‘Don’t Look Left’: Day 9