Language: English
Letters to Lamar from Al-Quds Hospital.
Palestinian poet Fatena Al-Ghorra fled Gaza back in 2009 and lives in Antwerp. It’s October 2023, when she goes back for the first time to visit her family. Then October 7 comes and all hell breaks loose. Fatena does not want to leave her elderly parents behind. Amid an Israeli bombing raid, they run to Al-Quds Hospital, where they take shelter along with 12,000 other refugees. From the hospital, Fatena writes letters to her niece, Lamar, expressing her hope and despair.
These letters became a book: Exodus to Gaza. Fatena Al-Ghorra, now back in Antwerp, shares about it – and her experiences in her homeland Gaza – during an interview with Christine Otten.
The book Uittocht naar Gaza will be published in October 2024 and has been translated from the original Arabic by Lore Baeten. Al-Ghorra also wrote the poetry collections God’s Deception and Take This Body, translated into Dutch.