Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture

Join us for the Edinburgh launch of the essential Daybreak in Gaza. We have the honour of being joined by two of the book's editors, Mahmoud Muna - bookseller and cultural activist from Jerusalem on a short visit to the UK from Palestine, and Matthew Teller. The event will be hosted by Dr Malaka Shwaikh, Associate Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at St Andrews, and herself from Gaza.

This evening is a collaboration between Lighthouse,  the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World, at Edinburgh University and Saqi Books,

About the Book

‘A city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land.’  Shamsaddin al-Dimashqi, geographer (1256–1327)

This is Gaza – a place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry. A place now utterly devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught, its heritage destroyed.

Daybreak in Gaza is a record of an extraordinary place and people, and of a culture preserved by the people themselves. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers and teachers offer stories of love, life, loss and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza’s cultural landscape and the breadth of its history.

Daybreak in Gaza humanises the people dismissed as statistics. It stands as a mark of resistance to the destruction and as a testament to the people of Gaza.

Our Speakers

Mahmoud Muna is a writer, publisher and bookseller from Jerusalem, Palestine. He runs Jerusalem’s celebrated Educational Bookshop and the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel, both centres of the city’s literary scene. Muna is active in many cultural initiatives across Palestine and published the first Arabic edition of Granta magazine.

Matthew Teller is a UK-based writer and broadcaster. He has written on the Middle East for the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times, Financial Times and has produced documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and World Service. Teller is the author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City, which was a 2022 Telegraph Book of the Year. www.matthewteller.com.

Dr Malaka Shwaikh is Associate Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has conducted multidisciplinary research in the Levant (especially Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon), North Africa (especially Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), the Gulf region (especially Qatar), Turkey, South Africa, Britain, and Northern Ireland.