Spore hosts: "Passages through Genocide"

Everyone is invited to read texts and poetry from Gazan writers and in many languages. Gaza Passages will provide some printed texts on the day as well.

‘Gaza is not worried about its image or features, but rather its core that’s molded with ashes. This spot of land, watered by the sea, has a salty taste, but a delicious one, a pungent taste that makes you lose your ability to speak. Gaza has its inexplicable style, unportrayable, unerasable…Gaza is the worst place in the world to take a photo. Gaza is the most beautiful place for memories and nostalgia. Gaza never cries, but floats on its tears. Gaza never screams, but manifests living through the horror of explosions.’

–   Husam Maarouf, Poet from Gaza. He was displaced to Rafah and continues to write.

'This is why I’m writing now; it might be my last message that makes it out to the free world, flying with the doves of peace to tell them that we love life, or at least the life we have managed to live; in Gaza all paths before us are blocked, and instead we’re just one breaking news or a tweet away from death. I am not a number and I do not consent to my death being passing news. Say, too, that I love life, happiness, freedom, children’s laughter, the sea, coffee, writing, Fairouz, and all that is joyful—though these things will disappear in the space of a moment…One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold back.’

–   Noor Aldeen Hajjaj, writer from Gaza. He was killed in an Israeli strike on December 2nd, 2023.

You can find other writers and texts translated to many languages at www.gazapassages.com

"Gaza passages is a collective which collects, translates and publish texts from Palestinian writers confronting the genocide in Gaza, to lift up their words."