TEHRAN – Soore Mehr Publication has released the Persian translation of two books about the life of Palestinians.

“Golda Slept Here” written by Suad Amiry and “Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture” edited by Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller are now available at bookstores across the country, Mehr reported.

In “Golda Slept Here,” originally published in 2015 and translated into Persian by Leyla Sadat Hosseini, politics enters the lives of every family in Palestine. In this literary historical tour de force, Suad Amiry traces the lives of individual members of Palestinian families and, through them, the histories of both Palestine and the émigré Palestinian community in other countries of the Middle East

Amiry mixes nostalgia with anger while mocking Israeli doublespeak that seeks to wipe out any trace of a Palestinian past in West Jerusalem. She juxtaposes serial bombardments and personal tragedies, evokes the sights and smells of Palestinian architecture and food, and weaves for the readers the tapestry that is the Palestinian reality, caught between official histories and private memories. 

Through poetry and prose, monologue and dialogue, the readers glimpse the lost Palestinian landscape, obscured by the silent battle between remembering and forgetting.

Suad Amiry, 75, is a Palestinian author and architect living in Ramallah. From 1991 to 1993, Amiry was a member of a Palestinian peace delegation in Washington. She is engaged in some major peace initiatives of Palestinian women, including serving as Palestinian team coordinator for the Jerusalem program at the Smithsonian Institution's 1993 Folklife Festival.

From 1994 to 1996, she was the Assistant Deputy Minister and Director General of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Culture.

“Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture” was originally published in 2024. The Persian translation has been carried out by Yaghoub Nemati.

“A city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land,” geographer Shamsaddin al-Dimashqi (1256–1327) once said about Gaza. A place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry, is now pulverized and devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught. 

Today, as its heritage is being destroyed, Gaza’s survivors preserve their culture through literature, music, stories, and memories. 

“Daybreak in Gaza” is a record of that heritage, revealing an extraordinary place and people. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers, and teachers across the generations offer stories of love, life, loss, and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza’s cultural landscape and the breadth of its history.

This remarkable book humanizes the people dismissed as mere statistics and portrays lives full of joy and meaning. “Daybreak in Gaza” stands as a mark of resistance to the destruction and as a testament to the people of Gaza.

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