In the foreword to Atef Abu Saif’s diaries chronicling the 51-day Israeli incursion in Gaza during the summer of 2014, Noam Chomsky writes that “descriptive and analytical prose is too cold, too remote from the human tragedy that is depicted [here]… Further explanation seems only to sully what Atef Abu Saif conveys with such simple dignity and eloquence.” Indeed, a similar conundrum faces the reviewer, forced to deliver a verdict on the pages beneath your fingertips, weighing up the prose, the imagery, the use of realism, before making the final judgement.
Read the full review on the Palestine Book awards site.