About the book: I think the real occupying forces are the internal ones, Hamas, Fatah, the parties...then comes the major occupation: Israel. We can't get rid of the latter without first getting rid of the former. To be honest, we are being subjected to a siege of the mind that is much more important than the siege on the borders. - Asmaa Alghoul in L'Impossible (first issue)
Born in Rafah, raised in Gaza, subjected both to Israeli bombs and to Islamist tyranny, and in the face of prison, death threats, abuse, misogyny, violence, and repression, Asmaa Alghoul has continued to speak her truth. She has continued to live and to love, to laugh and to protest. In this moving memoir of growing up Gaza with a hunger for freedom and a passionate attachment to the places she calls home, journalist, writer, and activist, Alghoul recounts her lifelong resistance to religious fanaticism, state sponsored violence, and all forms of repression and subjugation. Alghoul has been called “too strong minded,” criticized for not covering her hair, derided for ignoring warnings and speaking out against injustice. Her pure, clarion voice is raised wholly in support of dialogue, peace, love, and honesty.
Nothing, it seems, can stop her.
Offering an intimate look into life, politics, and survival in Gaza in recent years, Alghoul’s A Rebel in Gaza (2024) offers readers a nuanced and singular perspective on the current conflict.
A Rebel in Gaza is translated from the French by Mike Mitchell.
About the authors: Asmaa Alghoul was born in 1982 in Rafah, in a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. A regular contributor to Al-Monitor, an information site that deals with news from the Middle East, she currently lives in France where she is writing her next book. She has won numerous international awards, including the Human Rights Watch Hellman / Hammett Award, the Dubai Press Club prize for journalism, and the International Women's Media Foundation Journalism Award.
Sélim Nassib served as a correspondent for Liberation during the war in Lebanon. He is the author of The Palestinian Lover (Europa Editions, 2007) and I Loved You for Your Voice (Europa Editions, 2006).
About the translator: Mike Mitchell has worked as a literary translator since 1995. He was awarded the 1998 Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Herbert Rosendorfer’s Letters Back to Ancient China after he had been shortlisted in previous years for his translations of Stephanie by Herbert Rosendorfer and The Golem by Gustav Meyrink. For many years an academic with a special interest in Austrian literature and culture, Mike Mitchell has been a freelance literary translator since 1995. He has published ninety-nine translations from German and French, including Gustav Meyrink's five novels and The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy.
His translations have been shortlisted four times for The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize: Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen in 1999, The Other Side by Alfred Kubin in 2000, The Bells of Bruges by Georges Rodenbach in 2008 and The Lairds of Cromarty by Jean Pierre Ohl in 2013. His biography of Gustav Meyrink: Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink was published by Dedalus in November 2008.
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