Between Illusion and Survival
An account of how fear and hope are so intricately woven into reality and how, sometimes, one small step is all we can strive for.
“How does a soul find calm when all day it stares, remembers, and dreams, stands between fantasies one cannot live, a yesterday one cannot return to, a tomorrow coming that can’t be trusted?”
Composed of inner dialogue and reflections on life in Gaza since October 2023, this poem-essay navigates the seemingly eternal rain, its washing away of certainties, and the hopelessness and anger all this brings.
Editions: English (original)
Letter to the Reader
These words were written in a time when emptiness became part of life in Gaza, when days pass heavily, and imagination turns into a temporary refuge from an unbearable reality.
Between fear and waiting, a person tries to let time pass in any way possible, to end the day as if they hadn’t lost a day of their life.
In the heart of this darkness, a simple truth appears: hope is not granted from the outside, it is made from within, from the attempt to rise after being broken.
These words are an attempt to turn pain into a voice, emptiness into meaning, and a message that in Gaza, there are still those who are trying to live.
Images and Text
Request for Recognition
Gaza has been under an intellectual embargo for decades. We ask members of the literary community to lend the strength of their voices to our authors. This zine has yet to receive words of recommendation. If you are an established author willing to read and recommend this zine, email us at coastallinespress@gmail.com to receive a digital or hard copy.
About the Author
Born in 2005, Weam Qudaih is a content creation student at UCAS and author of Diario Gaza, a personal war journal published in Italy. She loves storytelling and turning her thoughts into words.
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