From the organisers of the Palestine Festival of Literature, this anthology of essays connects Palestinian resistance with global freedom struggles against settler colonialism and calls on us to think more concretely about the practice of solidarity.
The Palestine Festival of Literature, or PalFest, was created in 2008 as 'a cultural initiative committed to the creation of language and ideas for combating colonialism in the 21st century'. The annual festival brings authors from around the world to convene with readers, artists, writers, and activists in cities across Palestine for cross-pollination of radical art, ideas, and literature.
These efforts resulted in Their Borders, Our World, an anthology thoughtfully arranged and introduced by PalFest cocurator Mahdi Sabbagh. Contributors include: Yasmin El-Rifae, Jehan Bseiso, Keller Easterling, Dina Omar, Tareq Baconi, Samia Henni, Omer Shah, Kareem Rabie, Ellen Van Neerven, Omar Robert Hamilton, and Mabel O. Wilson.
Each piece grapples with the questions: How do we confront the need to take inevitable and often difficult political stances? How do we make sense of the destruction, uprooting, and pain that we witness? And given our seemingly impossible reality, how is mutuality constructed?
Edited by:
Mahdi Sabbagh
Imprint: Haymarket Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 228mm,
Width: 165mm,
ISBN: 9798888901373
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 11 September 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword Yasmin el-Rifae Why New Solidarities? Mahdi Sabbagh Gaza Lovesong Jehan Bseiso I. Choices Under Siege Try to be in Palestine Keller Easterling Reflections on Structural Gaslighting Dina Omar Wretched Gaza: Confronting the Abject Tareq Baconi II. Witnessing French-Israeli Nuclear Coloniality Samia Henni From Bilad al-Haramayn to al-Quds: Rumor, Sovereignty, and Solidarity Omer Shah Everywhere in the World there is a Chinatown, in China there is a Khaliltown Kareem Rabie III. Mutuality Wounds in Place: Football as a Manual for Survival in Ongoing Colonization Ellen van Neerven City and Anti-City Omar Robert Hamilton Concerning the Violence of Architecture Mabel O. Wilson
Mahdi Sabbagh is a writer, architect, and urbanist from Jerusalem. He is a co-curator of PalFest, the Palestine Festival of Literature. His work has been published in the Journal of Public Culture, Jerusalem Quarterly, Architecture of the Territory (Kaph Books, 2022), Open Gaza (AUC Press, 2021), The Funambulist, Arab Urbanism, and PLATFORM. He is a 2023 Matakyev Research Fellow at the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands. Mahdi is a PhD student at Columbia University and holds a Masters in Architecture from Yale.
Reviews for Their Borders, Our World: Building New Solidarities with Palestine
“Edward Said once remarked Palestinians had been denied the permission to narrate their own histories and experiences. Much has changed since then. Their Borders, Our World brings together writers from PalFest, the international cultural solidarity initiative that defies the bans, borders, and bigotry aimed at snuffing out the vibrant Palestinian literary tradition. In the shadow of a Western-backed annihilationist campaign against Gaza and Palestinians, this volume does more than grant the permission to narrate: It is, without permission or apology, a call to liberate.” —Nick Estes (Lakota), author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and The Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (Haymarket 2024) ""From exploring settler colonialism’s banality to the violence of architecture, this timely highly-recommended book explores through ten innovative essays new insights into ways of understanding and building solidarities with Palestine."" —Raja Shehadeh, author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir
