A cradle of faith and ancient history, Palestine is home to sacred cities like Bethlehem and Jericho (one of the oldest in the world). Its landscape of hills and ancestral olive groves is marked by political complexity and the struggle for recognition. Palestinian culture is rich in literature, traditional embroidery (tatreez), and celebrated cuisine, maintaining a resilient and profound identity.
Dear reader,
It is with great satisfaction that, as a scholar of Arab literatures, I present this overview of vibrant and resilient contemporary Palestinian literature. Far from being a mere artistic manifestation, Palestinian literary production is configured as a fundamental act of resistance, a powerful testament against erasure, and an affirmation of the identity and humanity of a people. In recent decades, and even more pressingly in recent years, Palestinian writers have offered the world a body of work of immense poetic and political strength, using the word as a trench, a memory, and a denunciation.
This article seeks to map some of the most significant voices of this moment, introducing Brazilian readers to writers and works that certainly deserve a prominent place on our shelves and in our hearts.
The Word as Testimony and Shelter
Palestinian literature has always been marked by the experience of displacement, loss, and occupation. However, contemporary production, especially after the events of October 2023, takes on a character of direct and urgent testimony. As writer and translator Sarah Aziza aptly observed, "my aesthetic is one that declares mourning as its first act of resistance, haunting the colonial order that works, always, to deny indigenous bodies and memories." It is this transformative power of pain into art and memory into a weapon that we find in the authors below.
Contemporary Voices and Foundational Works
1. The Epic Testimony from Within Gaza
Some of the most moving and important accounts come from writers who have lived or are living the siege in Gaza firsthand.
-
Mahmoud M. Al-Shaer: Poet and editor of 28 Magazine, Al-Shaer offers us a staggering document in I Am Still Alive: Dispatches from Gaza (2025). Written from January 2024 onwards, the book is a series of accounts that blend lyricism and the rawness of life under constant bombardment. His writing is described as "raw, lyrical, defiant," building "language as shelter" amidst the rubble. Al-Shaer, who also works in a field hospital, embodies the intellectual who refuses to be silenced, dedicating his book to his twin sons, separated by war. In another recent work, Letters from Gaza (2025), he further explores the intersections of poetry, collective memory, and cultural survival under siege.
-
Mosab Abu Toha: Winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in the "Commentary" category, Abu Toha is one of the most internationally recognized voices. Founder of the first English-language library in Gaza, his poetry is a mix of simplicity and depth that hits the reader like a punch to the gut. In his book Forest of Noise (2024), he writes: "I leave my bedroom door open, so the words in my books, / the titles, and the names of authors and publishers, / can escape when they hear the bombs." His work, which also includes Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (2022), is an exercise in memory and humanity in a scenario of extreme brutality, narrating everything from the loss of friends to the devastation of his library.
-
Nahil Mohana: Born in Gaza City in 1982, Mohana is a novelist, short story writer, and playwright who keeps a crucial war diary. Her accounts, published in outlets like the Washington Post and in the anthology Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide (2025), offer a sharp and sensitive look at the daily horror, while she also dedicates herself to teaching creative writing to children and young people.
-
Marwa Abu Raida: A writer and poet from Gaza, her journey is already marked by persecution and exile. Her novel Friends of Fearness – Galil and Ozile, which explores the friendship between a Palestinian and an Israeli, led to threats that forced her to flee Gaza. Her work navigates philosophy, psychology, and poetry to explore the hidden scars of occupation and displacement, receiving honorable mentions in awards like the Ars Electronica.
2. Speculative Fiction and the Critique of Reality
Palestinian literature has also ventured into other genres, using speculative fiction to expose uncomfortable truths.
-
Ibtisam Azem: Her work The Book of Disappearance (2014) became a recent phenomenon when it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2025. The novel starts with a brilliant and disturbing premise: all Palestinians living in Israel simply disappear overnight. Through this dystopian lens, Azem invites the reader to reflect on the visibility and erasure of Palestinian existence, memory, and identity, in a narrative that oscillates between utopia and dystopia.
3. Memory, Exile, and the Diaspora
Outside of Palestine, a generation of writers keeps the flame of memory alive and explores the complexities of identity in exile.
-
Sarah Aziza: With roots in Gaza, her masterpiece, The Hollow Half, is a genre-defying memoir, winner of the Palestine Book Award. In lyrical and powerful prose, Aziza reconstructs the story of her grandmother, born without a birth certificate in historical Palestine, and her family's journey through displacement, weaving a potent reflection on what it means to be Palestinian in the diaspora.
-
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Winner of the 2024 National Book Award in the US for her poetry collection Something About Living, Tuffaha delivered a memorable acceptance speech, urging the audience to "get uncomfortable" in the face of the genocide in Gaza. Her poetry is a visceral link between her paternal heritage in Jerusalem and the reality of being a Palestinian-American voice on the global literary scene.
-
Mohammed El-Kurd: A young poet and activist, he became the face of resistance in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. His poetry collection Rifqa (2021) is an indictment against the brutality of colonization and his family's eviction, giving voice to his grandmother and his people's struggle. In his 2025 manifesto, Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal, he questions the need for Palestinians to constantly prove their humanity.
-
Hala Alyan: A psychologist and writer, Alyan explores the fragmentation of Palestinian families in novels such as Salt Houses (2017) and The Arsonists' City (2021). Her work is a mosaic of characters scattered across the globe, united by the memory of a land and by family secrets that span generations and borders.
4. Contemporary Classics and the Memory of the Camp
-
Adania Shibli: Her novella Minor Detail (2017) is a masterpiece of conciseness and power. Divided into two parts, the first narrates the rape and murder of a young Bedouin woman by Israeli soldiers in 1949; the second, a woman in Ramallah today obsessed with uncovering the truth about this "minor detail" of history. The work, a finalist for the International Booker Prize, is a reflection on the persistence of violence and the difficulty of accessing the past.
-
Huzama Habayeb: In Velvet (2016), Habayeb offers an intimate and moving portrait of life in the Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan. Through Hawwa, a seamstress, the novel explores the resilience of Palestinian women, the pursuit of dignity, and the strength of art amidst oppression, having won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.
-
Hussein Barghouthi: His book Among the Almond Trees (2004) is a posthumous and meditative memoir. Written while facing a terminal illness, Barghouthi returns to his native Palestine after years in exile and observes the transformed landscapes, interweaving reflections on identity, belonging, and the passage of time with unforgettable lyrical prose.
Final Considerations
Contemporary Palestinian literature is a vibrant and essential field for understanding our times. Whether in the urgent testimony of Mahmoud Al-Shaer and Mosab Abu Toha, the speculative fiction of Ibtisam Azem, the powerful poetry of Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and Mohammed El-Kurd, or the memory-driven novels of Sarah Aziza and Hala Alyan, what we see is an absolute refusal to be erased. As Hala Alyan reminds us, "you can destroy all the libraries and archives and villages in the world, you can make return impossible, you can rename a city... and it still won't change that fact." Palestinian literature is living proof of this truth, an archive of resistance, and an invitation to empathy that we cannot ignore.
Bibliographical References
-
ABU RAIDA, Marwa. Friends of Fearness – Galil and Ozile. (forthcoming). Author information available at: Artists at Risk.
-
ABU TOHA, Mosab. Forest of Noise. 2024.
-
ABU TOHA, Mosab. Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. 2022.
-
AL-SHAER, Mahmoud M. I Am Still Alive: Dispatches from Gaza. K. Verlag, 2025.
-
AL-SHAER, Mahmoud. Letters from Gaza. 2025.
-
ALYAN, Hala. Salt Houses. 2017. [Brazilian edition: Casas de Sal].
-
ALYAN, Hala. The Arsonists' City. 2021. [Brazilian edition: A Cidade dos Incendiários].
-
AZEM, Ibtisam. The Book of Disappearance. Translated by Sinan Antoon. 2024 [original Arabic publication: 2014].
-
AZIZA, Sarah. The Hollow Half. (forthcoming). Author information and excerpts available at: United States Artists.
-
BARGHOUTHI, Hussein. Among the Almond Trees. 2004. English translation: 2022.
-
EL-KURD, Mohammed. Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal. 2025.
-
EL-KURD, Mohammed. Rifqa. 2021.
-
HABAYEB, Huzama. Velvet. 2016.
-
HAMMAD, Isabella. The Parisian. 2019.
-
JARRAR, Randa. A Map of Home. 2008.
-
KHALIFEH, Sahar. Wild Thorns. 1976.
-
MOHANA, Nahil. War diaries and novellas. Author information available at: Granta.
-
SHIBLI, Adania. Minor Detail. 2017. [Brazilian edition: Um Detalhe Menor].
-
TUFFAHA, Lena Khalaf. Something About Living. 2024.
Editor's Note: Research conducted with the assistance of Deep Research is subject to referential ambiguity and may confuse facts and people. Although Sílvio de Souza Lôbo Júnior has reviewed the material to correct such inconsistencies, it is advised that inaccuracies may persist. We count on your help for clarifications and suggestions. Contact the Editor.
Dear reader,
It is with great satisfaction that, as a scholar of Arab literatures, I present this overview of vibrant and resilient contemporary Palestinian literature. Far from being a mere artistic manifestation, Palestinian literary production is configured as a fundamental act of resistance, a powerful testament against erasure, and an affirmation of the identity and humanity of a people. In recent decades, and even more pressingly in recent years, Palestinian writers have offered the world a body of work of immense poetic and political strength, using the word as a trench, a memory, and a denunciation.
This article seeks to map some of the most significant voices of this moment, introducing Brazilian readers to writers and works that certainly deserve a prominent place on our shelves and in our hearts.
The Word as Testimony and Shelter
Palestinian literature has always been marked by the experience of displacement, loss, and occupation. However, contemporary production, especially after the events of October 2023, takes on a character of direct and urgent testimony. As writer and translator Sarah Aziza aptly observed, "my aesthetic is one that declares mourning as its first act of resistance, haunting the colonial order that works, always, to deny indigenous bodies and memories." It is this transformative power of pain into art and memory into a weapon that we find in the authors below.
Contemporary Voices and Foundational Works
1. The Epic Testimony from Within Gaza
Some of the most moving and important accounts come from writers who have lived or are living the siege in Gaza firsthand.
-
Mahmoud M. Al-Shaer: Poet and editor of 28 Magazine, Al-Shaer offers us a staggering document in I Am Still Alive: Dispatches from Gaza (2025). Written from January 2024 onwards, the book is a series of accounts that blend lyricism and the rawness of life under constant bombardment. His writing is described as "raw, lyrical, defiant," building "language as shelter" amidst the rubble. Al-Shaer, who also works in a field hospital, embodies the intellectual who refuses to be silenced, dedicating his book to his twin sons, separated by war. In another recent work, Letters from Gaza (2025), he further explores the intersections of poetry, collective memory, and cultural survival under siege.
-
Mosab Abu Toha: Winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in the "Commentary" category, Abu Toha is one of the most internationally recognized voices. Founder of the first English-language library in Gaza, his poetry is a mix of simplicity and depth that hits the reader like a punch to the gut. In his book Forest of Noise (2024), he writes: "I leave my bedroom door open, so the words in my books, / the titles, and the names of authors and publishers, / can escape when they hear the bombs." His work, which also includes Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (2022), is an exercise in memory and humanity in a scenario of extreme brutality, narrating everything from the loss of friends to the devastation of his library.
-
Nahil Mohana: Born in Gaza City in 1982, Mohana is a novelist, short story writer, and playwright who keeps a crucial war diary. Her accounts, published in outlets like the Washington Post and in the anthology Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide (2025), offer a sharp and sensitive look at the daily horror, while she also dedicates herself to teaching creative writing to children and young people.
-
Marwa Abu Raida: A writer and poet from Gaza, her journey is already marked by persecution and exile. Her novel Friends of Fearness – Galil and Ozile, which explores the friendship between a Palestinian and an Israeli, led to threats that forced her to flee Gaza. Her work navigates philosophy, psychology, and poetry to explore the hidden scars of occupation and displacement, receiving honorable mentions in awards like the Ars Electronica.
2. Speculative Fiction and the Critique of Reality
Palestinian literature has also ventured into other genres, using speculative fiction to expose uncomfortable truths.
-
Ibtisam Azem: Her work The Book of Disappearance (2014) became a recent phenomenon when it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2025. The novel starts with a brilliant and disturbing premise: all Palestinians living in Israel simply disappear overnight. Through this dystopian lens, Azem invites the reader to reflect on the visibility and erasure of Palestinian existence, memory, and identity, in a narrative that oscillates between utopia and dystopia.
3. Memory, Exile, and the Diaspora
Outside of Palestine, a generation of writers keeps the flame of memory alive and explores the complexities of identity in exile.
-
Sarah Aziza: With roots in Gaza, her masterpiece, The Hollow Half, is a genre-defying memoir, winner of the Palestine Book Award. In lyrical and powerful prose, Aziza reconstructs the story of her grandmother, born without a birth certificate in historical Palestine, and her family's journey through displacement, weaving a potent reflection on what it means to be Palestinian in the diaspora.
-
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Winner of the 2024 National Book Award in the US for her poetry collection Something About Living, Tuffaha delivered a memorable acceptance speech, urging the audience to "get uncomfortable" in the face of the genocide in Gaza. Her poetry is a visceral link between her paternal heritage in Jerusalem and the reality of being a Palestinian-American voice on the global literary scene.
-
Mohammed El-Kurd: A young poet and activist, he became the face of resistance in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. His poetry collection Rifqa (2021) is an indictment against the brutality of colonization and his family's eviction, giving voice to his grandmother and his people's struggle. In his 2025 manifesto, Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal, he questions the need for Palestinians to constantly prove their humanity.
-
Hala Alyan: A psychologist and writer, Alyan explores the fragmentation of Palestinian families in novels such as Salt Houses (2017) and The Arsonists' City (2021). Her work is a mosaic of characters scattered across the globe, united by the memory of a land and by family secrets that span generations and borders.
4. Contemporary Classics and the Memory of the Camp
-
Adania Shibli: Her novella Minor Detail (2017) is a masterpiece of conciseness and power. Divided into two parts, the first narrates the rape and murder of a young Bedouin woman by Israeli soldiers in 1949; the second, a woman in Ramallah today obsessed with uncovering the truth about this "minor detail" of history. The work, a finalist for the International Booker Prize, is a reflection on the persistence of violence and the difficulty of accessing the past.
-
Huzama Habayeb: In Velvet (2016), Habayeb offers an intimate and moving portrait of life in the Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan. Through Hawwa, a seamstress, the novel explores the resilience of Palestinian women, the pursuit of dignity, and the strength of art amidst oppression, having won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.
-
Hussein Barghouthi: His book Among the Almond Trees (2004) is a posthumous and meditative memoir. Written while facing a terminal illness, Barghouthi returns to his native Palestine after years in exile and observes the transformed landscapes, interweaving reflections on identity, belonging, and the passage of time with unforgettable lyrical prose.
Final Considerations
Contemporary Palestinian literature is a vibrant and essential field for understanding our times. Whether in the urgent testimony of Mahmoud Al-Shaer and Mosab Abu Toha, the speculative fiction of Ibtisam Azem, the powerful poetry of Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and Mohammed El-Kurd, or the memory-driven novels of Sarah Aziza and Hala Alyan, what we see is an absolute refusal to be erased. As Hala Alyan reminds us, "you can destroy all the libraries and archives and villages in the world, you can make return impossible, you can rename a city... and it still won't change that fact." Palestinian literature is living proof of this truth, an archive of resistance, and an invitation to empathy that we cannot ignore.
Bibliographical References
-
ABU RAIDA, Marwa. Friends of Fearness – Galil and Ozile. (forthcoming). Author information available at: Artists at Risk.
-
ABU TOHA, Mosab. Forest of Noise. 2024.
-
ABU TOHA, Mosab. Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. 2022.
-
AL-SHAER, Mahmoud M. I Am Still Alive: Dispatches from Gaza. K. Verlag, 2025.
-
AL-SHAER, Mahmoud. Letters from Gaza. 2025.
-
ALYAN, Hala. Salt Houses. 2017. [Brazilian edition: Casas de Sal].
-
ALYAN, Hala. The Arsonists' City. 2021. [Brazilian edition: A Cidade dos Incendiários].
-
AZEM, Ibtisam. The Book of Disappearance. Translated by Sinan Antoon. 2024 [original Arabic publication: 2014].
-
AZIZA, Sarah. The Hollow Half. (forthcoming). Author information and excerpts available at: United States Artists.
-
BARGHOUTHI, Hussein. Among the Almond Trees. 2004. English translation: 2022.
-
EL-KURD, Mohammed. Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal. 2025.
-
EL-KURD, Mohammed. Rifqa. 2021.
-
HABAYEB, Huzama. Velvet. 2016.
-
HAMMAD, Isabella. The Parisian. 2019.
-
JARRAR, Randa. A Map of Home. 2008.
-
KHALIFEH, Sahar. Wild Thorns. 1976.
-
MOHANA, Nahil. War diaries and novellas. Author information available at: Granta.
-
SHIBLI, Adania. Minor Detail. 2017. [Brazilian edition: Um Detalhe Menor].
-
TUFFAHA, Lena Khalaf. Something About Living. 2024.
Editor's Note: Research conducted with the assistance of Deep Research is subject to referential ambiguity and may confuse facts and people. Although Sílvio de Souza Lôbo Júnior has reviewed the material to correct such inconsistencies, it is advised that inaccuracies may persist. We count on your help for clarifications and suggestions. Contact the Editor.
