‘Even Flowers Die Softly’
This month, Maamoul Press publishes a new zine by young Gazan creators Jehad Abu Dayya and Esraa el-Banna: The Final Scene. Amid genocide and displacement, for months the pair wrote letters to one another. Fourteen of these letters are compiled in a new zine, along with Esraa’s illustrations. It begins with an exchange on October 7, 2023: Esraa was reading The Kite Runner on that day, struggling to find escape from the sound of bombardment, while Jehad writes back by the light of missile fire. Their letters follow both the life-altering and the quotidian: their displacements, their effort it takes to make a cup of tea, the books Esraa reads.
They letters end in February 2025, on a question. Esraa writes to Jehad about a conversation she’d had about man who never had an opportunity to publish his work while he was alive. Only after he was killed by the Israeli occupation was he granted the world’s attention. At the time, Esraa had thought there was a point to posthumous interest in the man’s work. So the man wouldn’t be forgotten, she thought. But now, as she writes to Jehad, she is less certain.
The collection ends like this, on an echoing uncertainty.
The Final Scene is available for purchase in a risograph printed zine, or as a PDF, all proceeds will support Jehad and Esraa; you can also watch a video of the making of the zine.
The excerpt below appears with permission.
From ‘The Final Scene’
LETTERS FROM A GENOCIDE
Between Jehad Abu Dayya & Esraa El-Banna
Illustrated by Esraa El-Banna
Oct. 17, 2023 / Esraa to Jehad
Even flowers die softly
I thought I had survived when I went South—but I hadn’t. The ghosts of my beautiful memories now haunt me, and I fear I will never have a life again. I learned that Mohammed Sami was killed. He died like a violet, and my eyes couldn’t bear to cry.
I remember when he told me that at first, he too was young like me—searching for meaning and the enjoyment of life. He told me it was good that I wanted to learn. I cried for the opportunities I missed, for the meetings I skipped because of my lecture schedule. I cried for the stories we never lived, and the songs we never heard before the genocide that is happening to us now.
In our last gathering at Banafseg (The Arts Team in Gaza), Sami asked us to bring leaves with us because we were going to learn how to print with them. It was a magical session, but I didn’t know it would be the last.
I’ve become joyless, like a lump of sugar that never dissolved in tea. I relive the same days. Beheadings continue, prisoner swaps, cease-fire attempts, America resumes, Arab states condemn. And so I move through radio stations.
It feels like aimless waiting—will we be among the dead, or will fate write us a new life?
Esraa el-Banna (2003) is a fourth-year English literature student, writer, and artist from Gaza. She was displaced from Gaza City on Oct. 13, 2023, and returned to her partially destroyed home during the ceasefire, where she currently remains.
Jehad Abu Dayya (2003) is a fourth-year medical student and poet from Gaza. He was displaced from Gaza City on Oct. 13, 2023, and is currently still displaced in Deir al-Balah, South Gaza. During the war he worked on his debut Arabic poetry collection, which was recently published. He enjoys playing the oud in his spare time.