Palfest Bookshelf: UK subscription

By joining the PalFest Bookshelf you’ll be giving critical support to daring new publishing on Palestine – crucial in this moment of increased censorship.

Subscribers receive 6 books per year – every other month – each with a special extra, along with invitations to book club conversations with authors.

February/March:

Mai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been to Palestine, the country from which her family was expelled in 1948. She is twenty-four years old when one morning she receives a phone call from her estranged father. His health is failing and he might not have long to live, so he asks her to join him in China where he runs a business empire about which Mai knows nothing. Mai agrees to go in the hopes that they will become close, but this strange new country is as unknowable to her as her father. There, the ghosts of the Nakba come to haunt them both. With this grief comes violence, and a tragic death brings a whole new meaning to the word erasure.

In a narrative made rich by its layers of fragmentation, as befitting the splintered and disordered existence of exile over generations, this courageous memoir spans Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai, China and, of course, Palestine. It is filled with bitter tragedy and loss and woven through with an understated humor and much grace.

PalFest has worked with three artists from Gaza to produce six greetings cards with their artwork. This month, as a special extra, Bookshelf subscribers will receive one of the designs. The full set of six can be bought on our website.