PVLF 2025

'We are hardly alive,' message from Gaza causes tears at Palestine Literature Festival

Emotional poetry night in London for Palestine solidarity, despite venue challenges.
on Oct 31, 2023

This emotionally charged night marked the suffering on all sides of the conflict, with contributions from poets, authors, and a Nobel laureate, and was interrupted by real-time reports from Gaza.

It was an almost-missed opportunity. In the end, more than 500 people packed a London basement hall for a night of poetry and performance in solidarity with the Palestinian people. However, PalFest, an annual event in London since 2008 co-founded by Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif, was left without a location after the Royal Geographical Society canceled their booking, citing security concerns in light of the Israel-Hamas war.

The organizers had sold 600 tickets and had only a few days to find another site. At the last minute, they acquired the hall inside the National Education Union in London. When the chairs ran out, audience members stood around the stage and sat on the floor, as well as joining the band online.

Soueif described the one-minute pause as "for everyone, especially all the children who are killed in these moments of conflict." Updates from Gaza disrupted proceedings in real time, such as when all electricity and telecommunications were shut off and the declaration of an Israeli ground offensive.

Soueif termed the killings of civilians "deplorable, cruel deeds" and praised the "tremendous importance" of Jewish voices speaking out against the war, including numerous people in the room. She referred to the Nakba - the wholesale displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war - as a "ongoing process," and speakers spoke movingly about the 75-year Israeli occupation of Palestinians.

Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah described a 2009 trip to Ramallah as providing him with a "tiny glimpse" of life under occupation, highlighting pupils forced to drive three hours to class and sick individuals unable to travel to different regions of the country for medical care. He criticized Hamas' "intolerable and unforgivable" attacks and Israel's "brutal, vengeful retaliation." He summarized by saying, "It's too much, killing people this way."

Actors Julie Christie and Harriet Walter delivered emotionally charged readings of excerpts from regional writers, while novelist Mohammed Hanif pleaded, "Does the world have a heart big enough for both Israeli mothers and fathers, and Palestinian parents, to hug their children to sleep with the reasonable assurance that they will be alive the following morning?"

Soweto Kinch, a saxophone and rapper, presented music, while Palestinian-Egyptian poet Tamim Barghouti discussed the impact of the occupation. Meanwhile, novelist Matthew Teller detailed growing up in a Jewish home in the United Kingdom and increasingly questioning the Zionist ideas that he was raised with. "We spent our vacation in an East Jerusalem settlement."

Everyone we met was Jewish, Israeli, or both, and every tale we heard was about Israel's miracle." "I heard new ways of telling the stories I knew" when he began traveling around the Middle East, he continued. And each time I returned to Israel, everything became less and less clear, until it made no sense at all."

Tobias Menzies read aloud disturbing social media messages from Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who is now in Gaza and told of bombs falling and civilians dying all around him. Everyone we met was Jewish, Israeli, or both, and every tale we heard was about Israel's miracle." "I heard new ways of telling the stories I knew" when he began traveling around the Middle East, he continued. And each time I returned to Israel, everything became less and less clear, until it made no sense at all."

Tobias Menzies read aloud disturbing social media messages from Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who is now in Gaza and told of bombs falling and civilians dying all around him. One, from two days ago, read: “My neighbors are killed.” Another spoke of how there were not enough hospital beds: “Children are screaming. It’s dark except for the light of the explosions. We are hardly alive.”

Soueif recognised the magnitude of the night's charge as she brushed away her own tears. PalFest director Omar Hamilton spoke of the event's increased significance: how it provided individuals the opportunity to recognise Gazans' suffering together, rather than following it alone. However, he expressed alarm about the erosion of rights to gather and communicate opinions concerning Palestinians in this country and around the world, as some face being canceled, fired, or demoted. He referenced a draught resolution in the United States that would make student action on Palestine illegal. "We really hope," he remarked, "that this does not become a new reality."

The fundamental right to assemble and exchange is supposed to be a cornerstone of the country, yet it is fast disappearing."

Rashid Khalidi, the prominent Palestinian-American historian and Columbia University professor, had previously complained of "university and government persecution of student activism," and Mustafa Sheta, general manager of the West Bank's Freedom Theatre, reiterated that attitude. On Friday, he talked from the Jenin refugee camp office about the importance of art and culture as forms of resistance.

He mentioned artistic icons in the area who had been held in "administrative detention" without charge, such as Bilal al-Saadi, chair of the board of directors at Freedom Theatre, who has been imprisoned since September 2022, and Mohammed abu Sakha, a circus performer who was also arrested and kept without trial. Sheta said that in anonymous phone calls, Israeli intelligence operatives barred him from flying overseas and threatened him.

Prior to the outbreak of conflict, the Palestinian Performing Arts Network (PPAN), an umbrella body for theater makers, had planned a November showcase of Palestinian culture encompassing everything from circus to dance and music.

"Artists have an important role to play in talking about Palestinian identity during this invasion," she said. "We are afraid to speak freely, but we will continue to be artists." We are a part of the effort of combating apartheid and racism."