‘Safaa and the Tent’: Narrating Gaza through Comics

Earlier this week, The Lakes International Comic Art Festival published Gaza-based artist Safaa Odeh’s Safaa and the Tent, a collection of drawings and social-media posts translated by Nada Hodali. The book, available through Etsy, will get its official launch later this year.

Nada talked about the book, its humor and grief, and the difficulties of translating a work that leaves you speechless.

Can you tell us a bit about this collection and how it came about? How did you get involved?

Nada Hodali: Safaa and the Tent is a collection of comics and a diary, in fact, that Palestinian artist Safaa Odeh compiled in Gaza between October 2023 and December 2024. The comics were drawn on the “walls” of the tent, hence the title. In collaboration with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival and the Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, Safaa Odeh’s diary is set to launch at the LICAF in September 2025. All profits from sales will go to Safaa.

I was working on different projects relating to Gaza, from translating comics to articles detailing what is happening on the ground, and I came across Safaa’s work through the cartoonist Sabaaneh. Safaa drew the collection of cartoons from October 2023 onwards and continues to do so on her Instagram page @safaa.art, portraying what is and what has been happening in Gaza daily. I do want to stress the fact that Safaa’s art about Gaza began way before October 2023, and that she has been documenting everything going on from Gaza, the suffering and grief of Palestinians for the past 70 years, not just the past two.

When did you first start following Safaa’s cartoons, art, and commentary? Can you describe a few of the drawings that have really stayed with you?

NH: I began following her works in January. What drew my attention the most was the way she portrays her longing for day-to-day chores that, with this war, have turned into dreams. In the 5 Jan 2024 comic, she portrays “A Refugee’s Dream”: simply singing a lullaby to a baby as it falls asleep, without the sounds of bombs and missiles all around the mother and her child. Palestinians in Gaza are not able to do things that no one else around the world would think much about. Another comic I could never forget was the one where a man was looking for his soul on 21 Jan 2024, “I miss my soul… where are you my soul?” where Safaa portrays how, throughout this war, Palestinians have been stripped of everything, including their own souls. The comic on 18 Feb 2024 did give me a bit of hope that “despite everything,” Palestinians in Gaza were trying to keep their lives going. People were getting married, finishing their Masters and PhDs, and holding onto life in every sense of the world as everything all around them came crashing down. Another gut-wrenching comic that she drew, and followed with a commentary, was when Safaa wrote the obituary for her friend and colleague who was martyred on 19 October 2024.

The comic that yanked at my heartstrings was when Safaa lost her home on 4 August 2024. Then, again, Safaa shows us her courage, writing a commentary on 1 September 2024 showcasing their resistance and determination that will never cease to exist. In all honesty, all of Safaa’s cartoons stayed with me even after I finished translating them. These images are not easy to forget, given how everyone is affected by this war. Her comics show Palestinians simply fighting for their survival.

There is such tenderness to these drawings. The faces are round and expressive, and many of the ghosts that haunt the collection’s pages also try to comfort those who are still alive. (The mother on 6 November 2024 is gazing up from her grave with such love!) Despite the ceaseless hunger, cold, heat, & violence, it’s striking how much care and love the characters put into each other (like the woman comforting another woman on 21 September 2024, even though she is so visibly drained by it, or the mother sewing back up the story she was telling her child, after it was struck by a rocket, on 2 August 2024). What struck you most about the art, and about the emotional register of it, about what’s conveyed?

NH: The striking thing about Safaa’s comic is how she poetically showcases how important and enriching daily events are. From a mother supporting her son, to a lady supporting her friend, to a husband caring for his family. Everything is amplified; what we consider as “simple” chores are viewed from a different lens given the hardships, the inner voice that most of us are unable to let out, and the thoughts we are not able to scream. Safaa was able to portray these in her cartoons and commentaries.

Despite the harrowing imagery in some of the comics, Safaa does include humorous, happy, and joyful cartoons amidst the sorrow, death, and desperation that surrounds them—and poisons them—daily. You can see what the Palestinians in Gaza were thinking throughout the year where this comic is situated, their ups and downs, the hope for a ceasefire, the ceasefire inevitably breaking, forced displacement, hunger, humiliation, and so on. The comic takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster. Given that people around the world have not seen what the situation is on the ground when a war breaks out in Palestine, yet again, it is essential for them to read this book, see what actually happens, to further understand the Palestinian cause and what Palestinians suffer through.

Talking — and sharing stories — is such an important part of the collection. To me, this made the times when people are rendered unable to speak (like on 25 March 2024, where people’s speech bubbles are stuck inside them) even more harrowing. What did you want to focus on, as a translator, as you conveyed Safaa’s words into English, for a new audience to listen and join the conversation?

NH: My approach to translating Safaa’s work was to choose words that encapsulate the feeling portrayed and/or emitted by the cartoon. Translating this comic was difficult at times given the topic as well as my relation to all this, as I’m also Palestinian. Mine is not a word-for-word translation, as the text has to encompass everything within the picture, expressing all the emotion present in it.

Looking back at the cartoon on 25 March 2024, I have been left speechless at some of the cartoons, trying to find the best way to portray the idea and ensuring that no meaning is lost in translation. It took me longer than expected to translate this comic because I was focused on single words, the different effects words have on the reader, the importance of repetition in the Arabic original, and how that could work in the English translation. The linguistic focus was there to ensure that the meaning could be understood by everyone and that the meaning could be seen through the comic and the commentary.

This collection depicts huge grief, but it also brings us into so many everyday moments (the sound of drones echoing in people’s heads, the slap in the face of rising prices, the joy of shampoo, forgetting and leaning back against a tent wall). There are also moments of humor (like the baby learning curse words on 25 September 2024). What do you think this collection of cartoons conveys that other literary forms — and that journalism — cannot?

NH: This comic depicts the humanity of the people who are living in Gaza at the moment. Yes, despite the war, displacement, and loss, they do require the essential gadgets and necessities that people all around the world can simply head to a store and purchase. The way that this comic conveys the thousands of questions people have to answer, between themselves, and the thousands of decisions they have to make before deciding on buying something as simple as a bag of flour that can reach up to $70 when people around the world can get it for $5, if not less. It simply depicts the struggle and resistance Palestinians in Gaza have to go through whether they like it or not at this point to provide the basics for their families.

It also displays how Palestinians tend to deal with rough situations through dark humor. It is the only way we’re able to survive anything that goes down, everything that has been happening for the past 70 years. Sometimes, when I am speaking to someone and dark humor starts seeping into the conversation from my end, it shocks them. It might seem like we are numb to it all, trying to push things away. That is quite the opposite of what we’re doing. Dark humor literally keeps us going, it gives us the energy to do what we have to do to survive. Things would be more tragic than they already are if Palestinians did not use dark humor as a coping mechanism. Despite the grief, sorrow, and being drained, they attempt to keep going with the sound of drones, death, and fear echoing in the background. This isn’t a polished cartoon; this cartoon quite literally shows you what is happening on the ground and how Palestinians in Gaza are having to deal with them.

Get the collection at: etsy.com/uk/listing/1873916928/safaa-and-the-tent-the-diary-of