DENNIS BROE observes how cutbacks, mergers and AI create content detached from both reality and history itself
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The Poet Laureate of Gaza
A remarkable posthumous collection of poetry and other writings is a tragic document of genocide, and a beacon of hope for a Palestinian future, says HENRY BELL
Refaat Alareer
[Palestinian Information Center/CC]
SAHAR MARANLOU explores a novella, newly translated and republished in English that tells the history of Iran through women’s bodies
DAVID NICHOLSON applauds the revival of a joyous production that deals with choirs, competitions and communism
New releases from Peruvian Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, Leve Leve: Sao Tome & Principe, and South African BCUC
MARY DAVIS welcomes a remarkable documentary about the general strike — politically spot on, and featuring accounts from the strikers themselves — that is available for screenings
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review The Stranger, Undertone, and Outcome
If I must Die
Refaat Alareer, OR books, £19.99
WHEN Refaat Alareer was murdered by an Israeli air strike on the December 6 2023, aged 44, thousands of people across Palestine and the world mourned the loss of a great writer, educator and liberated mind.
In the days that followed, millions more became aware of his work, as a poem of his began to spread. His words: “If I must die,/ you must live/ to tell my story” became an icon of Palestinian resistance and the global ceasefire movement. They travelled not just on screens and at demonstrations, but scrawled on walls around the world, pasted up in windows of homes and cafes, appearing on billboards, translated into scores of languages.
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