Books as Breath: Gaza’s Living Story
Books as Breath: Gaza’s Living Story
In Gaza, reading is not a pastime, but a quiet confrontation with reality. When the noise of drones replaces the hum of daily life, a candle flickers over printed words, and someone turns a page as if keeping time with their own heartbeat. Each sentence read in darkness becomes a small victory—a reminder that even when the world narrows, the mind can still travel.
For the youth of Gaza, who face genocide far too young, novels offer more than stories—they offer other lives. Through them, a reader can walk through cities untouched by siege, fall in love without fear, and dream without interruption. And in Nuseirat, two brothers understood this truth deeply. With nothing but a table of books placed on the pavement, they built a doorway for their community—a space where imagination could still breathe.
Salah al-Din Ahmed Sarsour recalls the earliest days of his bookstore: “My older brother Abdullah and I established it in the spring, when the weather was nice and people were outside on the street.” They set up a makeshift stall, a few books laid carefully on the pavement in the heart of Nuseirat. These two brothers had a dream that was larger than the street they stood on.
Imagine the scene: cars rushing past, vendors shouting the prices of fruit and bread, children darting between shoppers—and in the midst of this chaos, a small stand of books. Many passersby didn’t even notice it, yet for others, it was a spark of light in a dark landscape. “In four months, we developed from a small stall into a larger one, and then bigger and bigger. Now, alhamdulillah, we have a proper bookstore,” Salah explained with pride.
This growth was not just physical; it was symbolic. The brothers went to the north and to different areas of Gaza to gather books from warehouses or other libraries. Each new stack of novels added to the stall signaled that there were readers hungry for words, for stories, for a world beyond rubble. Their little stand became a gathering point. Students would pause on their way home, leafing through the pages. Young women would stop to ask about new novels. Even adults, weighed down by daily burdens, sometimes paused to glance at titles that reminded them of calmer times.
The brothers’ initiative echoed George R.R. Martin’s famous words: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” In a city where the horizon is often blocked by checkpoints and barbed wire, these books opened windows to a thousand other horizons. Through a single novel, a reader could step into medieval kingdoms, travel across oceans, or discover the intricacies of human hearts.
At night, Salah and Abdullah would gather up the books, cover them carefully to protect them against dust, and return them to their small home. There was always the risk of damage, of rain, of loss—but also the hope that tomorrow more readers would come. That fragile stall, born in the middle of noise and genocide, became a quiet sanctuary.
When I asked for the motivation behind their project, Salah didn’t hesitate. His answer was clear, his voice steady and filled with conviction: “The idea came from our passion and love for reading. We also noticed that there wasn’t a single bookstore selling novels in the central area, so we became the starting point here.”
This was not a business plan drafted on paper—it was a dream carried in the heart. They had grown up discovering the magic that a book could hold: the way ink and paper can construct an entire world, how a single story could change the mood of a day. Their decision to open a bookstore was, in essence, a decision to share that magic.
Their passion recalls Frederick Douglass’s famous reminder: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” In Gaza, where borders cage lives and opportunities shrink, reading is perhaps the last frontier of freedom. Salah and Abdullah understood that. They knew that by placing novels in the hands of young people, they were offering not just entertainment but freedom—the kind of freedom that begins in the mind and spreads to the spirit.
Salah explained with a gentle seriousness: “It wasn’t profit that drove us, but passion. We simply believed that stories matter, that novels give people more than amusement—they give them escape from violence and despair.”
Walking into Salah and Abdullah’s bookstore, one quickly notices a theme: novels dominate the shelves. This was no accident. “Most of what we have are novels,” Salah explained, his tone carrying both practicality and pride. They do not have rare manuscripts or antique collections that attract scholars in distant capitals. Instead, they carry what their people crave most—stories that speak to them, comfort them, and help them survive.
The library’s collection reflects this mission. It spans Arabic and world literature, from Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent to Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, from Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry to Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love. It includes modern fantasy, motivational works, and self-help books, such as Amr Abdel Hamid’s Ard Zikola series, Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*, and Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. The collection also features graphic novels and philosophical works, creating a space where ideas, imagination, and knowledge converge.
Books of religious reflections, like Messages from the Qur’an by Adham al-Sharqawi, or works by Qais ibn Sa’ida, are among the most requested. These titles, with their moral insights and spiritual reminders, offer readers a sense of grounding and direction in times when life itself feels unstable. Alongside them, the modern fantasy and adventure novels of Osama Al-Muslim are hugely popular, drawing youth into worlds filled with mystery, battles, and victories that stand in contrast to the struggles of daily life in Gaza.
Here, the collection itself becomes a mirror of the community’s heart. When life outside is consumed by uncertainty, fear, and constant loss, readers turn inward, reaching for pages that can soothe or distract, inspire or transport. Salah explained this beautifully: “We’ve noticed young people turning more and more to novels, especially to escape the worries of genocide.”
It is a profound truth: reading in Gaza is not just leisure—it is therapy. Novels become a safe space to process emotions that reality does not allow to surface. Between chapters, a young man might find the courage he needs to face another day under siege. A young woman, caught between cultural pressures and the trauma of inner conflict, may discover in fictional heroines the reflection of her own strength.
This hunger for stories also testifies to resilience. Instead of succumbing to despair, young readers insist on creating inner landscapes rich with meaning. They may not be able to travel across borders, but they travel across stories. They may not have safe streets to walk, but they have safe pages to wander.
In many ways, the popularity of these titles reveals the true mission of Salah and Abdullah’s bookstore: to provide not just books but breathing spaces, to ensure that even under siege, the imagination of Gaza does not suffocate. Each book, whether sold or temporarily borrowed by someone they trust to return it, is in itself a quiet victory.
In most parts of the world, a bookstore’s main concern might be finding the best discount from a distributor or ensuring delivery trucks arrive on time. In Gaza, the reality is entirely different. The blockade turns even simple tasks into challenges, and for Salah and Abdullah, bringing books to their community is a constant struggle.
“We rely on local Gaza printing presses, which are forced to print novels locally since importing them is impossible,” Salah explained. What many take for granted—ordering books online or receiving packages from a publisher—becomes nearly impossible under the blockade. Borders here are more than physical obstacles; they also restrict the flow of knowledge and ideas.
Even the basic materials for making books—paper, ink, glue, staples—are scarce. Each sheet must be conserved, each cartridge of ink carefully preserved. Keeping a printing press running amid daily power cuts, with machines idle in the dark waiting for electricity, is a daily test. Every printed page represents a small triumph over shortages and delays.
Salah also described another challenge that seems almost unbelievable to those outside: “One of the biggest challenges we face is transporting books from Gaza City to the central governorate due to the lack of transportation and other difficulties.” A journey that should take only a few hours turns into a difficult route. Damaged roads, limited fuel, and checkpoints make moving boxes of books feel like smuggling treasures across hostile territory.
And in truth, they are treasures. In Gaza, a book is more than an object—Each novel that reaches Salah and Abdullah’s shelves has already faced its own obstacles. Its journey honors not only the author but also the printers, transporters, and readers who refuse to abandon the stories.
Stocking a bookstore here becomes a reflection of life in Gaza: nothing comes easily, and yet people find ways to continue. Ensuring that books exist to be read is itself an act of determination. Every delivery, however delayed or small, is a statement that learning and imagination will not be silenced.
To understand the heartbeat of Salah and Abdullah’s bookstore, one must look beyond the shelves to the people who gather around them. Readers form the library’s true life, and in Gaza, each visitor brings a story as meaningful as the books they explore.
The diversity of readers mirrors the variety of needs—some seek escape, some seek knowledge, some seek insight. But all share a belief that turning each page is more than reading: it is an act of perseverance. And as long as readers continue to pass through the library doors, the community itself keeps moving, thinking, and living.
Dreams are essential for life in Gaza. Without them, the weight of daily challenges could overwhelm anyone. For Salah and Abdullah, the library is more than a present reality—it is the beginning of a larger vision that reaches beyond the narrow streets of Nuseirat.
When asked about the future, Abdullah said. “We look forward to our library becoming one of the biggest in the sector—if not the biggest in the Arab world one day, God willing,” he said. His words reflected humble ambition, a quiet determination to grow despite the limitations around them.
The idea may seem almost impossible from outside Gaza. How could a library that began as a small street stall, built on borrowed money, ever match the grand libraries of Cairo, Beirut, or Dubai? Yet it is precisely this improbability that gives the dream its power. In a place where movement is restricted, dreaming becomes a way to travel freely.
Abdullah explained: “We want our library to be more than a place to buy books. We want it to be a place where people grow, where they find themselves.”
Abdullah also looked outward, across borders: “We hope writers will allow us to print their novels legally, so that we can provide them to our readers in Gaza. Right now, it is very difficult under genocide to reach them. We wish there could be a way.
Books act as bridges. A reader in Gaza may experience the same story as someone in New York, London, or Cairo. These shared experiences create connections and remind readers that reading is part of a larger conversation.
Salah and Abdullah’s bookstore in Nuseirat quietly resists the challenges around it. In the midst of Gaza’s daily difficulties, it creates a space where curiosity and imagination can thrive. Each book carries more than a story—it holds moments of learning, reflection, and the persistence to continue growing. For those who come, the shop is not just a place to purchase novels; it is a place to explore ideas, lose oneself in thought, and connect with stories that matter. Every page turned serves as a subtle reminder that even in difficult circumstances, life can hold meaning, and new possibilities can take root.
Salah and Abdullah’s small shop in Nuseirat is a testament to the power of literature. A model of Palestinian endurance.
Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a Palestinian writer, poet, and editor from Gaza, and a 19-year-old English literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza. Through her writing, she aims to amplify Gaza’s voice and bring to light stories that are too often left untold. She is a writer for We Are Not Numbers (WANN) and has collaborated with, and had her work featured in, leading international platforms, including Al Jazeera English, The Intercept, The Nation, Truthout, Middle East Eye, The New Arab, Middle East Monitor, Mondoweiss, The Markaz Review, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, The Electronic Intifada, The Palestine Chronicle, Institute for Palestine Studies, Prism, Politics Today, Social Text, The Massachusetts Review, ArabLit Quarterly, Baladi Magazine, Opol, and Palestine deeb dive.
She is a 2025 Poetry of the Camps–Gaza Fellow through Illuminated Cities and also serves as an editor for Baladi Magazine, where her poetry has been published, as well as in Opol, combining her passion for both writing and editing to elevate voices that need to be heard. To read all her works, click here: https://tqwaportfolio-project.