« Writing Under Fire: A Voice from Gaza »
Noted Palestinian writer Yousri Alghoul is coming to the bookshop on 27th of october to discuss his experiences in Gaza, as well as his latest publication, Book of Wills. Published in March by Akoya, eighteen Gazan writers share their last will and testament. The book is a profound exploration of the written word as both an act of resistance and a refusal to be erased. The collection includes pieces by several writers who have since been killed.
Yousri published his first collection of short stories, Singing at Her Death, in 2007 and has since published the novels Before Death / After Madness, The Dead Resurrected from Gaza, Fifty Days, and Layla (all in Arabic), as well as Gaza 87, which focuses on Gaza since the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987.
Most recently, his reports from Gaza have been translated into English and can be found here, here, here, and here. Doors at 18.30, the event will start at 19.00. At the request of the author, we will be selling Book of Wills and related books at cost price. Sign up here.
Yousri Alghoul
*1980 in Gaza, Novelist & Fiction Writer
Yousri Alghoul is a novelist, short story writer, essayist and cultural activist from Gaza city. His writing grows out of lived experience and stays close to the human details that history often overlooks fear, resilience, memory and the struggle to hold on to dignity during the war on Gaza. Across his fictional and non-fictional materials, he writes about lives shaped by assassination and displacement, while insisting on the power of storytelling as a form of witness, resistance and connection.
He is the author of three novels and six short story collections, including Women of Lace, Clothes That Miraculously Survived, The Dead Resurrected from Gaza, The Gallows of Darkness and John F. Kennedy Sometimes Hallucinates. His work has appeared in international literary and cultural platforms, including World Literature Today, The Point, Michigan Quarterly Review, ArabLit, and the Institute for Palestine Studies.
Beyond his writing, Alghoul has long been engaged in cultural work and community-building. He created Cordoba Cultural Initiative, Shaghaf Youth Initiative and he was the founding curator of Gaza Hub- GSC, part of the Global Shapers Community, a youth initiative of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. He is also a member of the Palestinian Writers’ Union.
At the heart of Alghoul’s work is a belief that literature is not separate from life. For him, writing is a way to protect memory from erasure, to make space for silenced voices, and to carry Gaza’s stories across borders.