Edited by Basma Ghalayini
Featuring Talal Abu Shawish, Tasnim Abutabikh, Selma Dabbagh, Emad El-Din Aysha, Samir El-Youssef, Saleem Haddad, Anwar Hamed, Majd Kayyal, Mazen Maarouf, Abdalmuti Maqboul, Ahmed Masoud & Rawan Yaghi
One of NPR's Favourite Books of 2019
One of The New Arab's Best Books by Arab authors 2019
One of PopMatter's Best Books of 2019
One of the 50 Books to Watch in 2019 by the Irish Times
One of TranslatedLit's Most Anticipated Books for July 2019
In this bold, inspiring anthology of short fiction, Palestine +100 gathers 12 stories of speculation about the future of Palestinians, holding space for conversations about trauma, memory, and contemplation of change.
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
Paperback: 9781646051403
eBook: 9781646051410
Description
Palestine + 100 poses a question to twelve Palestinian writers: what might your country look like in the year 2048 – a century after the tragedies and trauma of what has come to be called the Nakba? How might this event – which, in 1948, saw the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes – reach across a century of occupation, oppression, and political isolation, to shape the country and its people? Will a lasting peace finally have been reached, or will future technology only amplify the suffering and mistreatment of Palestinians?
Covering a range of approaches – from SF noir, to nightmarish dystopia, to high-tech farce – these stories use the blank canvas of the future to reimagine the Palestinian experience today. Along the way, we encounter drone swarms, digital uprisings, time-bending VR, and peace treaties that span parallel universes. Published originally in the United Kingdom by Comma Press in 2019, Palestine +100 reframes science fiction as a place for political justice and the safekeeping of identity.
Biographical Note
Basma Ghalayani, editor, was born in Khan Younis and spent her early childhood in the UK before returning to the Gaza Strip at age 12. She works as an Arabic translator and interpreter and has previously translated short fiction from the Arabic for the KFW Stifflung series, Beirut Short Stories, published on addastories.org, and Comma projects, such as Banthology and The Book of Cairo (edited by Raph Cormack).
Reviews
“The stories are unified by their common themes—walls, parallel words, various forms of apartheid; collective memory and forced forgetting; virtual reality; fierce government surveillance, drones, and spies. These stories were well worth the investment—from Saleem Haddad’s eerie false utopia in “Song of the Birds” to the surreal, often absurd “The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid” by Mazen Maarouf, translated by Jonathan Wright. It’s an incredible collection. . . Any fan of sci-fi will love this collection, but as a bonus, it provides space on the page for often marginalized voices.” —Leah Rachel von Essen, Book Riot
“Seeing how a host of different writers interpret the same overarching themes can be both analytically fascinating and narratively engaging. . . Stylistically and thematically, there’s plenty of ground covered in this collection—an array of possible futures and interpersonal complexities.” —Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders
"The stories are inventive and dexterous, as brilliant as they are painful — and sometimes even playful. . . I do know that as difficult as this book was for me to read, I'd do it again and again — out of warmth and admiration as well as solidarity." —Amal El-Mohtar, NPR
"There is no shortage of irony of cleverness in this collection. If anything, Palestinians have become experts in the deployment of these devices." —Asim Qureshi, Ceasefire Magazine
"Just as we do when Handmaid's Tale or Black Mirror plots unfold on the screen, you are most likely to read Palestine +100 and say, this is now." — Bhakti Shringarpure, Literary Hub