Description
In the year following 7 October 2023, Samar Yazbek met with hundreds of survivors from Gaza, asking each of them about their experiences of that day and the months of destruction and displacement that followed. From these encounters comes Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life, a selection of twenty-six testimonies from ordinary civilians aged thirteen to sixty-five, whose lives have been irrevocably altered by what may one day be remembered as one of the most savage military offensives of our time. Adapted from warning flyers dropped moments before a bombing, the book’s title captures the impossible reality of life for Gazans. That reality is laid bare in accounts marked by unimaginable loss – homes shattered, loved ones vanished, limbs obliterated – and mechanisms of cruelty that defy comprehension. In gathering these testimonies, Yazbek brings into focus the human lives behind the headlines, and the survivors’ determination, even amid devastation, to speak and to be heard.
- Translated from Arabic by Leri Price
- A vital work of oral history that gives primacy to real voices living through the ongoing war in Gaza, particularly at a time when press access to the region is restricted.
- Benefits from Yazbek's ability to conduct the majority of interviews in person – with survivors sent to Doha for medical treatment – and her trusted position as a chronicler of oppression in the region.
- Comps: What Have You Left Behind? by Bushra al-Maqtari, tr. Sawah Hussain; The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates; We Are Not Numbers by Ahmed Alnaouq, tr. Pam Bailey.