Https://fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk/events/stuffed-with-pen-vogler/

Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller have collected stories, essays, war diaries, memoirs, poems and images by all sorts of people from Gaza or connected to Gaza – writers and artists, but also shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, medics, office workers… They hope their words will help humanise a place of warmth and creativity that is wildly misunderstood, and a people who are suffering unspeakable trauma. They hope this work will offer a record of how Gaza was and how it is, as a foundation for how it might be.

This has been an extraordinarily taxing project, physically, mentally and emotionally. The book on which this talk is based was edited by Mahmoud Muna, bookseller in Jerusalem, and  Matthew Teller author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem. It was shaped by Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s communications director, the Gazan journalist Jayyab Abusafia and the publisher at Saqi Books, Lynn Gaspard.

Around a hundred people contributed. Some offered original material, or agreed to be interviewed. Friends and colleagues offered contacts. Translators helped throughout. Amid unimaginable pain, people have been phenomenally generous with their time and knowledge, trusting Mahmoud and Matthew with their stories.

Philippe Sands called this book “a most significant collection, one that frightens, awes and inspires.”

Palestinian writer Suad Amiry said it is “essential reading … a roar of fury and a cry for compassion that resonates on every page.”

Daybreak in Gaza is published on 3rd October

Mahmoud Muna’s family runs the Educational Bookshop and the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel, English language bookshops in East Jerusalem. Matthew Teller previously gave an online talk to Five Leaves about Jerusalem

Refreshments included

Profits from the book will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians

This event must be pre-booked. No tickets will be available on the door.