Palestine - 1

About

How can literature respond to a genocide? Is it even possible to write fiction after witnessing the horrors inflicted on Gaza? 

The contributors to Palestine - 1 attempt to answer this question, ignoring the lie that history began in October 2023, and addressing the great crime that underpins the entire occupation: the invasion and systematic annihilation of Palestine in 1948, displacing over 750,000 people, and stealing 80% of their land – the event collectively remembered as ‘the Nakba’.

Using literary devices typically associated with the horror genre – dreams, visions, ghosts, djinn, doppelgangers and divided selves – these authors explore the lead-up to 1948 and its aftermath, inviting readers to question the very realities that we, safe in the West, have built for ourselves. 

If the first casualty of war is truth, the last is often the peace of mind of those who are invaded – a generational trauma, in the case of Palestinians, that haunts them in a language that fantasy and speculative fiction can certainly speak to.

Press

SPOTLIGHTED IN LITERARY HUB BEST COVERS OF NOVEMBER 2025

Read an extract of Liana Badr's ‘I Swear, This All Happened’ in Wasafiri

'Overwhelmed by murders, instantaneous and slow, the voices of Palestine -1 run the risk of being drowned out by the clamour of headlines that trumpet a different story. It is this disparity which makes them all the more vital.' - Northern Soul

‘This is a book of love, in its most courageous and bare form... In these tales, harmony and uncertainty, like fact and fiction, go hand in hand. All 12 stories migrate through the connected and unspoken traumas of the land, its people, and their minds, working together to dismember the monsters of the past and present, and to restore a smiling promise of return.’ - The Skinny

'From Saffouryeh’s buried scream to the final, obscene flood, every story in Palestine -1 is placed with surgical intent. Basma Ghalayini’s editorial eye is merciless and loving at once. She lets the land speak first, splits the book open at its exact center with the diaspora’s drowning heart, and withholds the colonizer’s voice for last.' - ArabLit