“The world cracked open and Palestine was revealed in all her beauty and pain. This book is a love letter, a prayer for survival, and a poem of resistance.”

—Nan Goldin

SUMŪD

A NEW PALESTINIAN READER

essays, memoir, fiction, poetry, and art from the Markaz Review

EDITED BY MALU HALASA AND JORDAN ELGRABLY

SUMŪD: A New Palestinian Reader is an anthology that celebrates the power of culture in Palestinian resistance, with selections of memoir, short stories, essays, book reviews, personal narrative, poetry, and art from the Markaz Review.

The Arabic word sumūd is often loosely translated as “steadfastness” or “standing fast.” It is, above all, a Palestinian cultural value of everyday perseverance in the face of Israeli occupation. Sumūd is both a personal and collective commitment; people determine their own lives, despite the environment of constant oppressions imposed upon them. 

In times of devastation, poetry, literature, and art are the mediums through which oppressed peoples reveal cherished aspects of their existences and remain defiant in the fight for self-determination. Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader honors the Palestinian spirit and its power in the face of dispossession and war. When governments around the world enable the genocide of a people and the dilapidation of a sacred homeland, the Palestinian people stand fast and resist. The fifty-eight contributions in this collection remind readers that just as love perseveres, so do the Palestinians, and their struggles and triumphs.

This anthology spans the 20th and 21st centuries of Palestinian cultural history, and highlights writing from 2021–2024. The essays, stories, poetry, art and personal narrative collected in Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader is a rich riposte to those who would denigrate Palestinians’ aspirations for a homeland. It also serves as a timely reminder of culture’s power and importance during occupation and war.

“I am tired of language. I don’t want to make metaphors. About olive trees. About wearing a keffiyeh. About About About. The dream has not ended. My grandma is back in Jordan. She loves her passport. What does it mean to love? A country? A book? A people? To say “I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty,” while thinking about Palestine. While holding the key to your father’s first home. While While While. The news keeps screaming. The headlines chew at our eyes. A bald eagle burdens its wings with suitcases, then drops them in another land.”

—Noor Hindi, from “Pledging Allegiance”

"A powerful and inspiring testament to the human spirit, to the resilience of the Palestinian people, and to their indomitable struggle for liberation."

—Nathan Thrall, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

"If books could save the living, this one would rescue a nation. Sumūd is a vital anthology of writing and art that beats with the heart of Palestinian resilience, creativity, and resistance, much of it astonishingly composed amid an ongoing genocide."

—Moustafa Bayoumi, author of the American Book Award winner How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America

“This must-read anthology is an important contribution to our struggle for the truth against those who attempt to bury or distort it. Sumūd is full of heart and sets down the record of our time truthfully and eloquently, while serving as an antidote to the live-streamed Israeli horrors and US’s complicity in the genocide.”

—Michel Moushabeck, writer, editor, and founder of Interlink Publishing

"A powerful anthology that courses through Palestinian history and culture bringing together a multiplicity of voices, both academic and artistic. The desire to destroy and denigrate Palestinians and their culture predate, but are an integral part of, the Zionist project. This anthology serves as a manual of resistance; it showcases the range of fine writing on Palestine while documenting Palestinian resilience throughout the decades."

—Selma Dabbagh, author of Out of It and editor of We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers

"The ongoing attempted erasure of Palestine and its people by Israel is shown in detail in the varied contributions to this overwhelming anthology, as well as the Palestinians' will to survive and persist in their full humanity.”

—Lucy Sante, author of I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition

"It’s astonishing to me that, despite the blizzard of barbarism currently being visited on them, Palestinians continue to produce such stunning writing. This excellent compilation is essential reading."

—Brian Eno, musician, artist, and activist for Palestinian liberation

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