Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense

by Marcello Di Cintio

Across Palestine, from the Allenby Bridge and Ramallah, to Jerusalem and Gaza, Marcello Di Cintio has met with writers, poets, librarians, booksellers and readers, finding extraordinary stories in every corner. Stories of how revolutionary writing is smuggled from the Naqab Prison; about what it is like to write with only two hours of electricity each day; and stories from the Gallery Café, whose opening three thousand creative intellectuals gathered to celebrate.

Pay No Heed to the Rockets offers a window into the literary heritage of Palestine that transcends the narrow language of conflict. Paying homage to the memory of literary giants like Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani and the contemporary authors they continue to inspire, this evocative, lyrical journey shares both the anguish and inspiration of Palestinian writers at work today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Middle East, Social Commentary, Memoir, War

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2018

About the author

Marcello Di Cintio traveled to West Africa in 1997. He taught biology in a Ghanaian village for three months, then traveled through western and northern Africa for nine months more. Di Cintio’s time in Africa resulted in his first published stories and, eventually, his first book, Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa.

In 2003 and 2004, Di Cintio traveled to Iran to discover the connection between Persian poets and traditional wrestlers. Knopf Canada published the resulting book, Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey Into the Heart of Iran, in 2006.

In February 2008, Di Cintio flew into the Algerian desert to begin nearly five years of travel and research for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades chronicles Di Cintio's journeys along some of the world's most disputed and unfriendly edges. The book tries to answer the question: What does it mean to live in the shadow of a wall?

Di Cintio's 4th book, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, reveals life in contemporary Palestine as seen through the lens of the region's rich literary culture.

Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers will appear in May 2021. This book will reveal the fascinating backstories of the men and women who drive us around.

Reviews

[Hadeel Othman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am endlessly grateful to Marcello Di Cinto for this book. As a Palestinian, I tend to avoid reading about Palestine from non-Palestinian writers, because they always focus on the conflict, and often with hostile or condescending overtones. However, Di Cinto does the complete opposite of this, he highlights the diversity of the Palestinian experience, the complex of identities (from Gaza, to West Bank, Israel, etc), the artistic communities, and everyday struggles of the people, and he does it all with such honest compassion and appreciation that I was truly moved by this book. He wrote about Palestinians as true individual people and by doing so gave us a narrative of common humanity that I rarely see. What's more, since Palestine isn't an easy country to get to, the details about the different settings he experienced and the people he met there reminded me of my own time there, reading it was like being back in the homeland for a bit, which is just another reason why I loved it.

[eny · Rating 2 out of 5]

for being someone who has travelled extensively and written plenty of reports about his travels, marcello seems to write like a white man stepping foot outside of a white country for the first time in his white life.

his portrayal of what was “a tribute to the palestinian literary scene” is in fact “a tribute on how the west would want to the palestinian literary scene to look like”. interesting to see that the writers he chose to meet hence feature in his book, seem to all fit a very specific narrative: here we meet hardcore feminists, a pornographic writer that wants to break “taboos”, of course gay rights activists, young women defying and renouncing religion in order to “finally find freedom”.

marcello also cannot seem to hide his willingness to always lend a helping hand in portraying delusional scenes of coexistence and normalisation with the occupying israeli settlers, he does not in any way hide his disdain and disgust towards any form of violent resistance, not to mention the very strong stench of islamophobic sentiments engulfing the entire book.

the second to last chapter is about his visit to gaza, which has hamas mentioned in ever other word, which i’ll try to summarise for you: hamas doesn’t like women, hamas doesn’t like writing, hamas doesn’t like speaking, hamas doesn’t like listening, hamas doesn’t like reading, hamas doesn’t like culture (whatever that means for marcello), hamas doesn’t like thinking and hamas doesn’t like hamas. hope that made sense.

lastly, a fun and ironic fact i cannot dare to omit, is the that what inspired the author to undertake this travel in the first place and write about palestinian writers, was a picture of a young girl in a green dress picking up books from the ruins of a bombed library in gaza, marcello ends up meeting her and at the end it turns out the girl was on the ruins of a destroyed library belonging to a mosque, she was picking up pages of the Qur’an that she saw were scattered on the ground and stepped on by passerby, and she expresses her wish to become a sheika, because these are the women that inspire her the most <3

[Nicole Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great snapshot of life for Palestinians (looking primarily at writers) in Palestine and Israel, and how these creatives fight to create a space and story for Palestinians beyond the ongoing war and oppression. While it is a shame this isn’t own voices, it was probably easier for Marcello di Cintio to travel around where he did and meet who he met being an outsider. I appreciate that he made this largely a collection of interviews that gathers a lot of Palestinian accounts of their lives and histories together and that he quotes a lot from each person he visited. This book made me want to read from lots of the writers mentioned.

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to see Palestine not as an enduring and unsolvable political problem but as something physical that exists in the present tense....to see Palestinians as people unto themselves.
All we think we know of Palestine is its ugliness....I travelled to find beauty. P12

If you think that is an objectionable aspiration, you might not appreciate the indomitable MdC's quest. You might think that it is impossible, given the circumstances; or you might dismiss it as irrelevant or even dangerous. But Marcello di Cintio is doing more than merely messing with stereotypes and in following the highest impulses of his heart he has given us a marvellous tour of lively resilience while introducing us to the lineage of Palestinian poets that have played such a part in the life of the people.

the poets and the writers of Palestine...gather together the fragments of their existence onto their pages, verse by verse and line by line, and bare the beauty of a place known mainly for its opposite. p13

MdC finds that beauty, occasionally in place and always in the poetry of the acclaimed Mahmoud Darwish who was born in 1941 in Al Birwa, and the murdered poet Ghassan Kanafani from Akko. "He didn't carry a gun but he carried a pen" p21 his wife is attributed to have said at this funeral.

I dream of white tulips, streets of song, a house of light
I need a kind heart, not a bullet
I need a bright day, not a mad fascist moment of triumph
I need a child to cherish a day of laughter, not a weapon of war

Mahmoud Darwish, quoted on p83

After many visits I had started to sense the darkness beneath the aesthetics of faith and history. Each sect and sub-sect lays claim to every stone and alleyway. Everything is disputed. Nothing is tolerated. Jerusalem is a holy city to everybody, but welcoming to no one. p93

Actually, on my last visit to Israel/Palestine, the distinguishing trait shared by all of the Palestinians I met, from children to the elders, was their sincere and hearty response of welcome to anybody with the right introduction. After a lengthy meal at the home of Asaf in the Palestinian sector of Jerusalem, he decided it was too late for us to travel home to the other side of the wall. At his and his wifes insistence, they gave us their bed and went off to sleep at one of their sons homes nearby. It is a travesty that these gentle and long persecuted people have to bear the brunt of the conflict as it drags on.

MdC did not limit his tour to the heroes of the cultural past. He makes sure to include the kick-ass women and others who are taking their poetry to the next level. He travels to the out of the way and hard to find venues and small gatherings and gains the confidence of the loosely connected community of poets and performance artists.

Art will bring change more than bullets, bombs, or politics. A people who continue to read their own stories and poems, who sing their songs and dance their dances...sing, dance, and write themselves a continued existence. p98

Most moving to me is MdCs unfolding the story of the joyous little girl on the cover, skipping amidst the ruins, her skipping rope flashing, witnessed only by a tethered goat and, presumably, the splendid photographer who caught the girl mid air. He does manage by the end of the book to track her down. To me, it felt like a miracle.

Can anybody dare say his quest was not an essential if small triumph for the forces of love.

"Explosions travel faster than sound...so that if you can hear the rockets, then you are alive.You can't hear what kills you because it kills you before you hear it." P202

You won't care if you don't want to care. p131

[nur elaika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't how to use words to describe the feeling I have at the moment, but out of the books I’ve read on Palestine, this one impacted me the most. It had me reflecting on the way I viewed Palestinians after constantly being reminded by the media about the never-ending violence & discrimination they faced. I didn’t realize how I had associated every Palestinian to the war & how I didn't view them simply as people. People that had the same dreams & desires as I do.

The author is a Canadian writer who saw a photograph of a Palestinian girl picking up books from a bombed mosque which inspired him to seek out Palestinian writers by coming to Palestine. I was in complete awe to learn how literature is so deep-rooted in their culture and I also discovered numerous Palestinian writers and their books, which I currently have on my TBR list.

I also learned about the Kurd family, who I’ve coincidentally been following the twins religiously on social media. One thing that struck me was finding out that they're the same age as me, and yet, they are living in a completely different reality. The book also included Muhammad's poetry and it is evident that his words are full of wisdom & maturity. I commend him & his sister for holding up so much despite their age, from fighting for their existence while also fighting their dreams of simply living an ordinary life.

The israeli government & the zionists are trying every way possible to wipe out the Palestinians in hopes that their history ceased to exist. However, the Palestinian identity will live on as long as we, those that are living outside of that reality, choose to remember them. To keep them in our prayers, to learn about their history & culture and to learn about them as human beings that want peace without having to pay no heeds to the rockets for it.

[Jessie Light-Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read quite a few books about Palestine and the one thing they share is that they are always centered around the current political situation and the fact of the occupation. This book was a beautiful breath of fresh air in that Di Cintio (who has traveled to and written about Palestine for almost 20 years) in this collection introduces readers not to the political details, but to Palestinian artists – poets, writers, librarians and journalists- who are actively reflecting on life in Palestine in all its nuances. I loved making my way through Jerusalem, the West Bank, Haifa and Gaza with Di Cintio, meeting new creators and reading their stories, and finding myself opened up to an entirely new literary world.

[Brad Benson (moving to StoryGraph) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An harrowing read, and interesting as it is through the lens of writers and therefore, not an outright recap/assessment of the Palestinian situation. It showcases the integral role of stories, writing, and discussion in sustaining an identity and documenting periods of time through trauma. Far less partisan than you might expect, the book repeatedly focuses on the HUMAN condition, and acknowledges a complex and multi-faceted conflict that stretches across centuries --one that will not be resolved without diplomacy and human empathy among & between all players.

[Eathar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason I gave this a four, it is not for everyone. It is a book about humanity in arts, I grabbed this book in attempt to ignite my soul to reconnect with the Palestinian cause. It did do that not only that it added so much admiration to Palestinians as humans above all, their arts is their freedom as they fight for a free Palestine.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book, beautifully written, about beautiful people. Reading this helped me feel a connection with humanity that I hadn't felt in a good number of years now.

[Alicia Zambrano Braun · Rating 5 out of 5]

L'auteur nous fait découvrir les voix des écrivains/écrivaines palestiniens, et la diversité des réalités à Gaza, Ramallah ou Haïfa.

On découvre plus d'une vingtaine de personnalités, toutes avec des histoires bien différentes mais toutes marquées par la Nakba et les Intifadas.

Ce qui m’a frappé, c’est cette idée de ne jamais vraiment avoir de "chez soi", surtout pour ceux qui n'ont connu que Gaza ou les camps. This is the refugee's dilemma : to long for somewhere you do not know, and demand a return to a place you've never been.

Un livre à lire pour mieux comprendre la situation.

[Gemma Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pay no heed to the rockets" answers one question posed by the second generation of writers born under dominated territories; whether there is a Palestinian branch of Literature. Reinvention of previous symbols that radiated their meaning around the land, entailed a crucial questioning around identities.

It is true that many of the poets and artists that M. di Cintio interviewed were concious about the charged connotations of the space they inhabit and portray in their writing. The essay succeeded to filter the writer's own angst as he shared this experience of displacement, upon crossing to Gaza through Erez. Living under this scrutiny brought a diverse and kaleidoscopic view of their own land, reflecting on the roads and caravans, the rubble on the streets, crowded plazas, hotels, desserted border checkpoints, urban and rural areas, alike. The beach of Gaza is a landscape where imagination permeates, as different from the guarded controls, since the ocean provides a rest area, an oasis for the writers' imagination.

There is a recurrent sentiment of exposure that many writers expressed as if they had been objectively represented in their political struggle by international press. For this reason, they refused to enter in this dialogue and avoid to define their writing only from the conflict side. Avoidance of definition from an aesthetic point of view is what keeps the writing and expressionist movement to represent their land of beauty and ugliness, of timely conflict and timeless void.

PNHTTR portrayed everyday life outside literature and Palestinian voices as a means to beautify everyday life.

[Katie Peach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pay No Heed to the Rockets is a well written and fascinating book that looks at life in Palestine through Palestinian literature. The author did a great job of discussing different types of literature, as well as a variety of authors whose perspectives on Palestine and what Palestinian literature looks like differ. I like that he had sections dedicated to the West Bank, Gaza, and female writers in Gaza.

This is a must read for anyone interested in the Middle East and Palestine.

[Nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of all my IR books on Palestine I think this one was most worth the revisit. My (personal) top recommendation

—————————————————-

Humanity is evil and beautiful and resilient. Free Palestine.

[Asmaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible! I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about the importance of Literature in Palestine. This book wasn't what I expected it to be as I read it during the Palestine-Israel 'conflict' in 2023, but I loved it nonetheless and it's made me realise that I, too, see and read everything on Palestine through from a certain viewpoint instead of enjoying it as another piece of work.

This has gotten me interested in Arabic Literature as well, despite me being a fluent Arabic speaker and avoiding Arabic pieces for English ones instead.

[Ryder Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, haunting, devastating, the way Palestinians have and continue to write about their lives is incredible. I loved visiting each writers world and there perspectives but the whole book was haunted with the knowledge of the genocide unfolding now. Ceasefire, sanctions, peace, now and forever 🇵🇸🕊️

[Aizat Affendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ecopy of this book from Saqi Books in May, in light of the recent escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that started when the Zionist forces had tried to evict the residents of Sheikh Jarrah and apprehended Mohammed el-Kurd, whom the author had also met in the writing of this book. Judging from its title, I had thought this book to be one that would focus heavily on the suffering and destruction from the ongoing conflict. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the author had instead anchored it on the everyday lives of the Palestinians, particularly that of its literary community. Even though these people share a common Palestinian identity, their experiences and struggles are very diverse – heavily characterized by where they were born or grew up in (those who live in Gaza, West Bank and Palestinian Israelis or otherwise known as the “48 Palestinians”). The book also highlights the importance of literature, especially in preserving history and culture that would otherwise be lost and how it can be used as a powerful weapon by a heavily ostracized community in their struggle for equality and freedom.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this shelved for years, and was inspired to read it by current world events. It was soul food, the words of poets (in interviews) making sense of their ravaged world, not only the wars but also quotidian life, including patriarchy, tradition, faith, literature, the art of great coffee. It was also sad to wonder how they're faring now.

[Robin Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marcello Di Cintio begins his new book, Pay no heed to the rockets, with a poem and an image: a girl in a green dress. The poem is “Apology to a Faraway Soldier” by Mourid Barghouti, the eminent Palestinian poet and novelist born near Ramallah and officially stateless since 1967. For Barghouti, “Writing is a displacement—a displacement from the normal social contract—a displacement from the common roads of love and enmity. The poet strives to escape from the dominant, used language—to a language that speaks for the first time. If he succeeds in escaping and becomes free—he becomes a stranger at the same time. The poet is a stranger—in the same degree as he is free.” Di Cintio takes us on a different path into a conflict that for many has become cloaked in years of violence, misinformation, propaganda, and deadening familiarity. Places become their tragedies. Marcello calls that the “cruel accounting of death and despair.” The different path he chooses in this beautiful book is through the arts and that girl – through the “longing for beauty” her image awoke in him, the desire to go beyond the cruel accounting and find the life and art that stubbornly refuses to be shaped only by conflict. This is not to say that art is somehow immune of above the conflict. In crushing detail Di Cintio describes an Israeli attack on an the Sakakini cultural and arts center in Ramallah. Why destroy a center devoted to writing, concerts and the arts? “They wanted to give us a message that nobody is immune,” the Paletninian poet Mahmoud Darwish said.

Here is his beautiful description of the girl that starts the book, from a photo taken during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in 2014: "The girl-around ten years old- wore a green dress and pink leggings, and her long hair was tied back in a neat ponytail. She pulled books from beneath shattered concrete and cinderblocks and stacked them in her arms. The books were tattered and filthy, their covers dangling from their bindings. But in the last photograph, the girl walked away smiling.”

“Nothing is more beautiful than a story,” Marcello writes. In this book he takes us on a familiar journey, yet makes it deeply, wonderfully unfamiliar, through his unflinching eye – an eye that takes in the pathos and the suffering and the complexity as well as the exquisite persistence of life.

[Jennifer Abdo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to be honest: there are big pros and big cons. Big CN or TW for Orientalism. There are very good stories here, but the lens he's looking through will annoy the crap out of you if you're familiar with the history of the region or of resistance to occupation or international law.

Let's start with the good aspects. Di Cintio was a writer in residence in Palestine at one time - you can tell he loves literature and includes Palestinian literature in that. He highlights gay authors and meets and talks to so many poets and writers I can't list them all. He was able to tell their stories and draw out details I'd never heard them say elsewhere. If nothing else, you'll get a ton of titles and authors (&movies) for your to-read list!

When he gets into the storytelling, there's the Khalidi library, theft of books during the Nakba.(&movie called thre Great Book Robbery), intricate smelly details of how books are smuggled out of prison, role of Tamer Institute for Community Education, stories of collecting info for All That Remains - book of erased Palestinian villages, I enjoyed descriptions of the places he goes inside 48, the West Bank and Gaza, he has a detailed description of a humiliating checkpoint, there's the story of Jamal Abu Qumsan and the Gallery Café where artists meet, Kashabi Theater Company, the story of a salon for women authors, meeting Anni Kanafani, Mohammed El-Kurd, Atef Abu Saif, Abbad Yahya, khulud khamis, Dalia Taha, Adila Laïdi, Salha Hamdeen, Anahid Mlikian, Suha Arraf, Asmaa Azaizeh, Mona Abu Sharekh, Asmaa al-Ghul, Mayy Nayef, Sumaiya al-Susi, Rana Mourtaja and more.

Di Cintio seems to be sympathetic to Palestinian pain and injustices, but when confronted with negative things about Israel, he can't seem to wrap his brain around it - he puts things Palestinians tell him they've experienced in quotes, it's all "he claims," "allegedly," and never allows a Palestinian permission to be angry or advocate for freedom by any means necessary. They must be unarmed and nonviolent in his opinion. He doesn't have such requirements for Israel or Israelis, like the Western country he comes from.

A few examples:
He said of the Israeli policy of blackmailing gay Palestinians to become informants that the person he spoke to suggested this was the case. He could've verified this with books, journalism and human rights organizations in 2018. It's a fact. He doesn't seem to be able to believe this about Israel, though.

He repeats some easy false history, the US/Canada summary, of the "conflict" as he calls it - Jews accepted partition, Palestinians rejected it. I hope he reads Khalidi's Hundred Years War or Ilan Pappé's work with Said or Khalidi. They can help him out of that with what actually happened.

In his meeting with Anni Kanafani, Di Cintio shares his view that Ghassan Kanafani was assassinated in retaliation for planning the Lod airport attack with the Red Army (he labels them terrorists). Anni corrected him that Israel's plan was to liquidate intellectuals. (You can see this in the recent 2023 Israeli assault too - they called Refaat Alareer, taunted him, then leveled his building. Anyone good at communicating the struggle to Americans/Westerners is a target. It's repeated with journalists, professors, doctors.) Di Cintio still struggles for pages as he looks at photos of Kanafani, whose work he loves, with the possibility that he also could've killed someone. First, his widow said his weapon was a pen and Israel knew he was dangerous with that weapon. Second, under the daily violence Israel inflicts on the captive population, if he did plan an attack or kill someone - that would not invalidate his literary genius or the fact that Palestinians deserve equality, a life, self-determination, freedom as much as he does, as much as Israelis do. If he did plan an attack or kill someone, it certainly wouldn't in any way justify Israel's actions, occupation, collective punishment, attacks on occupied people, disproportionate violence, being THE CAUSE of the entire situation, cycle, conflict, etc - 75 years of genocide. I got really annoyed with the author at that point - just on page 21!

He loves talking to the Israeli curator of stolen Palestinian books now absorbed into their collection and also in a separate room. They say it's destruction and conservation, demolition and salvage - as though there's beauty or confusion there, but why isn't Di Cintio as mad as I am, as mad as one might be if a Nazi with a museum full of Holocaust victims' belongs looted from their house or taken from them at concentration camps from jewelry to furniture to teeth and saying, wow, aren't you glad I was there to save all these artifacts? It's obscene! A shrine to the massive continued injustice. It's not conservation. It's gloating over mass murder and large scale theft.

One of his interview subjects said her relative suffered intestinal illness brought on by his Israeli captors treatment of him - he used the word "claimed" as though he doubts seriously Israel caused such a thing. He hasn't read up on Israeli prisons, clearly. In the sae conversation, he couldn't believe a militant Marxist could write a sweet sappy letter to his mother. He doesn't believe the Palestinian is a person, does he?

I was annoyed of El-Kurd's behalf when Di Cintio refused to believe that an Israeli doctor tried to get his mother to abort him but not his twin sister as a demographic strategy. Instead of investigating or bringing up that Israel does experiments on prisoners and sells Palestinian organs with doctors' help, so it's possible, he just dismisses it and says, wow, look how much the sides mistrust each other.

The last annoyance I'll highlight is something he said to Atef Abu Saif asking about The Drone Eats With Me. Di Cintio wanted to know if it was a deliberate omission not to mention the Hamas rockets that "observers" (meaning the West and Di Cintio himself no doubt) say are the cause of the Israeli bombing, massacre, starvation, etc. Abu Saif responds to this siding with Israel and Western media in blaming Hamas rather than Israeli occupation, apartheid, genocide, 75 years of collective punishment by saving the book is a dairy, a human story about how that 2014 Israeli operation affected him and his family, which is a nice way of saying this isn't about Hamas, bud.

There are more examples of bias than this. I can't list them all. The Orientalism is a theme that runs through the book. It's his lens that he hasn't managed to break free from despite a healthy love of literature and genuine interest in -and empathy for- people. I think there are great discussions and details in his conversations with authors and is amazing how many he was able to meet and gather stories from. I would recommend this, but NOT for a history lesson at all (ignore his history completely and read Khalidi or someone) - only literature and human interest.

[T.P. Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry as dust. This is a journalistic endeavor, the author having spent considerable time in occupied Palestine and this is his reporting, but instead of a ground view of the effects of the occupation on the whole of the population, he concentrates on a subset - Palestinian writers and poets. Some of the "writers" are in effect unpublished in the sense that there work appears on line only, so I would question whether they are in fact "writers," and bloggers instead. But reading about how the writers have writer's bloc, how they struggle to publish and or be read, seemed self-absorbed and not very interesting. Best parts were the portions about life in Gaza - yes, it's awful, worse than I imagined - and the effort to restore books to their Arab owners who were displaced from their homes, especially in the 1967 war. Also, the parts dealing with women writers and the obstacles they face were also of interest. One thing surprised me - I would assume that a writer had a heightened consciousness about life in general, and was struck by the parochial view of the writers regarding the violence faced by both sides in the ongoing tragedy that is.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense is heavily-researched and back with a lifetime of passion on the area and its people. It reminds me of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Five Broken Cameras in the lens through which it views Palestine. What a way to access stories... THROUGH storytellers. It shouldn't seem revolutionary, but it is. With Marcello Di Cintio's latest, we have a chance to turn down the din of rockets and listen to the poetic voices that make the ground, the land, the home of millions hum below feet of stomping soldiers.

[Kiera Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyone should read this book

[Adriana Curto · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Mahmoud Darwish sat in Beirut during the Siege on the city in 1982, he took to his emblematic white cup of coffee and his words: "Gently place one spoonful of the ground coffee, electrified with the aroma of cardamom, on the rippling surface of the hot water, then stir slowly, first clockwise, then up and down. Add the second spoonful and stir up and down, then counterclockwise. Now add the third. Between spoonfuls, take the pot away from the fire and bring it back. For the final touch, dip the spoon in the melting powder, fill and raise it a little over the pot, then let it drop back. Repeat this several times until the water boils again and a small mass of the blond coffee remains on the surface, rippling and ready to sink. Don’t let it sink. Turn off the heat, and pay no heed to the rockets."

Marcello Di Cintio goes out to change the narrative we've all read about Palestine: about resistance, stone-throwers, occupation, politics. He looks at the land through its poets, its writers, and its literature. Di Cintio touches on the different geographical expressions of being a Palestinian writer, organizing conversations from the literary city cafes of Ramallah to the narrow alleyways of a besieged Gaza. His work highlights writers of all stature, not just the emblematic Mahmoud Darwish or Ghassan Kanafani, each of whom write for different reasons and purpose. Some express the khaki-wearing soldier knocking on their door, the old village man who is asked for the admission fee to enter the land his home was bulldozed from, and the bullets tearing through their kids within their words, while others shy away from politics and darkness, seeking to focus on normal aspects of a human life, like their families or love. Di Cintio, who is not Palestinian, seemed to recognize his privilege as a foreign writer throughout his journey, which I appreciated. When asked how his book would not be written through an "Orientalist lens", he responded honestly, that he didn't have the answer and reflected internally on moments he had nothing to offer but a written book in return.

Through Di Cintio's conversations, the writers tell us there is not one identity tied to being Palestinian. There should be no expectation to be "the writer of resistance" but at the same time, something binds all of these writers together, may that be history or just basic human nature. A beautiful testimony to the power of words weaved together on paper. 5/5!

[Luna M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love letter to Palestine, to the people of Palestine. I tend to be skeptical of non-Palestinian writers who write about Palestine, but the book was pretty good. The author states in the introduction: “I wanted to see her like I wanted to see Palestine: not as an enduring and unsolvable political problem but as something physical that exists in the present tense. And I wanted to see Palestinians as a people unto themselves, not merely as one half of a warring binary.” He then takes us on a literary tour of Palestine past and present, interviewing writers and poets and political thinkers and librarians and book lovers, so it feels like most of the book is uplifting the voices of Palestinians themselves. It was deeply moving and at times very informative. Di Cintio writes beautifully and accessibly, and his respect for Palestine was clear throughout the book.

I do have qualms about the author, starting with his wholesale condemnation of armed resistance, as he seems to espouse principles of absolute pacifism even in the face of unendurable oppression. At some point, he wonders whether Kanafani could “see a kind of victory in the spilling of innocent blood,” (p. 21) which is such a bizarre thing to say about a fully militarized society like israel where there’s no such thing as civilians.

At times, he veers dangerously close to two-sideism and normalizing language, like when Mohammed el-Kurd talks about israel’s reproductive health abuses and the author doubts israeli doctors would be engaged in such “nefarious” conduct (p. 114), wondering whether peace could ever “blossom” between people who “believe such things of each other,” and calling it a “conspiracy theory” even though there’s endless documentation of such practices. And when talking about normalizers Raja Shehadeh and his father, the author states that, like them, he finds “talk of the end of Israel” to be “truly absurd” (p. 66)— I don’t think it’s his place as a non-Palestinian to decide whether the end of a colonizing entity is absurd. His role is to center the lived experiences of Palestinians from his position as a western intellectual with a platform, which he did well enough for most of the book.

[N.otabene · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can someone write something so beautiful yet devastating at the same time ? Its only the beginning. Even the introduction is enough to make you cry.

We never knew the artistic and beauty of the Palestine and her people as media always portray the pain they endured, the explosion, the death of their families , the bombing and gunfire, where each checkpoints are heavily guarded by soldiers. Its hard to see beauty when all you get to see is the opposite. But their courage and determination to stay and protect their country is one of the thing that surely cant be overlooked.

Marcello Di Scintio ntroduce us to the most profound, Palestinian writers who wrote their stories amidst the chaos threatening to destroy them. Without stories, poetry and all other kind of art , how can one knows whats in others mind? Whats the reality faced by them other than depending on the one sided view by the media who showed things that benefits them ?

Some people view arts and poetry as a selfish means to escape the reality of world ,denying the fact that without them the civilisation might collapse as there is nothing to proof of the beauty of the life of people in the past. The folklore, tales which carried from generations, the beautifully written poem that makes people feel understood and their voices heard.
And thats why some people use any means to destroy the art produced by people. Fear for a revolution , for a change.

Its only words. Its only colours on paper.
No its not.

Words can change one’s mind. With carefully picked words, someone meek can become courageous. Someone stagnant can be overflowed with passions and zeals. Words can change the future if only one knows to use it wisely.

[Nadia Masood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike any other book I've read on Palestine, this one delves into the region through its literature, poets, and authors.

It reveals what inspires these writers, how they manage to get their work recognized amidst the turmoil of war, what becomes of their precious books when libraries are bombed, and how imprisoned authors manage to disseminate their work beyond the confines of jail.

This is a heartbreaking yet enlightening read.

Although to be honest, I couldn’t help but notice hints of Islamophobia within the narrative, as well as making sure the readers know that Hamas is evil (they seem to prohibit writing, going to coffee shops, talking to the opposite gender even in public spaces, laughing out loud…you get what I mean). There were parts that got boring and I found myself skipping a few pages.

Also, why do I feel like most of these contemporary poets and writers were handpicked by the author to make the book appealing to the western audience?

But overall, I’ve learned so many things from this book…things that shocked me, broke my heart, and some that gave me hope.

[Neil Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even in the face of stifling oppression life must go on. Whether it’s a cultural struggle or a personal one, we can take notes from the Palestinians on what perseverance and resistance looks like in the face of formidable circumstances.

Living an extraordinary life through the exact undertaking of mundane tasks like making tea under the constant thread of missiles is a calling. This calling is common to all of humanity however most of us are not aware of the missiles and miss the opportunity to enjoy our tea.

I appreciated the unsensational nature of this book providing an honest perspective on the haunting nature of Israel’s presence and the life that needs to be lived in that shadow.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is written by a non-Palestinian Canadian. The author interviewed a bunch of Palestinian authors and he provides some context for their inspiration throughout the book from 1948 onward. It has moments of brilliance provided by the Palestine authors and sometimes by his self-reflection. However there are some conversation he includes, which I think was meant to humanize Palestinians that felt really strange and added almost for shock value. It’s an interesting collection of stories but if you are hoping for a historical read, or this is your first time reading about Palestine I think you should start somewhere else and then come back to this book.

[Nick Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring

A mesmerising tour through the modern Palestinian literary scene. It gets behind the usual headlines, and let's the reader see the people and their feelings in a new light.

[Sam May · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a brilliant book. An interesting take on the lives of the Palestinians, where the focus is not on the violence that they endure on a daily basis. It’s opened my eyes and I want to read more!