October 2023. For the first time in 15 years, Belgian-Palestinian writer Fatena Al Ghorra visits her family in Gaza. When the hell breaks loose on October 7, she does not want to leave her elderly parents behind. Under incessant Israeli bombings, they flee head-over-heels to the Al Quds hospital. The hospital becomes their shelter. With twelve thousand others, they stay there for nearly a month.
While Gaza is reduced to ruins, Fatena sits on her tiny square meter in a corridor on the fourth floor of the hospital: without privacy or light. She writes letters to her cousin Lamar. There is misery and death in her texts, but they also reverberate an enormous will to live.
Uittocht naar Gaza (Exodus to Gaza) is a book about the faces and voices of Gaza, about the sensation of a glass of drinkable water, about singing as resistance and words as the only painkiller.
Uittocht naar Gaza. Brieven aan Lamar vanuit het Al-Quds-ziekenhuis will be published by EPO and will be presented at De Roma on December 10, where Fatena Al Ghorra will be joined by host Rachida Lamrabet.
Fatena Al Ghorra will recite in Arabic from her book of letters - with Dutch and English translation. The conversation with Rachida Lamrabet will be in English.
Fatena Al Ghorra (1974) is a Palestinian poet and journalist. In 2014 her first collection was published in Dutch under the title God's bedrog, and in 2019 Neem dit lichaam was published.
Rachida Lamrabet (1970) is a writer and legal scholar. She made her debut in 2007 with Vrouwland, and in 2018 her latest novel Vertel het iemand. In 201 7 EPO published Zwijg, Allochtoon!
