‘Gaza, the Game the Elephant Swallows Every Time’
Writer Husam Maarouf returns to Deir al-Balah in what feels like the same displacement and return he experienced only months ago.
Husam Maarouf
I Want a Room, God. Do You Hear Me?
“Even writing, even a warm home—I am afraid of losing them at any moment, of becoming homeless again, of searching for a language that resembles me.”
How Do I Leave the Prison of Gaza?
“The world is small,” they say. But Gaza taught me that the world is too big to be shaken by the small tragedies that happen here. Too big to care about a starving human being who only dreams of crossing a crossing.
How War Transformed My Literary Taste
Husam Maarouf writes about what it’s meant to be a reader before and during genocide.
Hunger That Defeats Language
“The hunger I’m experiencing now is not what I imagined. It’s not what you imagine, dear reader. It’s not just an empty feeling in your stomach. It’s a numbness that spreads from the gut to the brain. It blurs memories, weakens vision, and turns every thought into a deep excavation that the mind can’t bear. Hunger steals the simplest human abilities: concentration, patience, sensation, the desire to say something. Thinking becomes a luxury. Words become weights that cannot be lifted.”
Husam Maarouf on Launching New ‘Gaza Publications’
Hiusam Maarouf talks about the new publishing house “Gaza Publications,” saying that the idea “stemmed from the fear of obliteration and erasure that threatens the Palestinian story.”
Laughter Without Joy: Between Gaza’s Reality and Beckett’s Stage
In this essay by Husam Maarouf, he writes: “Isn’t it strange for someone to laugh in Gaza? Here, laughter is not because destruction is amusing or enjoyable—it is a moment of nakedness before the self, a full exposure. One has no choice but to laugh.”
What Do Gazans Read During War?
This is the start of what we hope will be a series of pieces by poet and journalist Husam Maarouf on reading, writing, and publishing in Gaza. By Husam Maarouf […]
Writing to Survive: Extending the Discussion with Gazan Poets
Below is an extension of our editor Nashwa Nasreldin’s essay at New Lines, “Gazan Poets Write to Survive.“ By Nashwa Nasreldin When I first started writing this feature for New […]
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