He has been one of the spokespersons and witnesses to the suffering of Gazans since October 7. The poet Mosab Abu Toha, who fled the Palestinian enclave bombed by Israel in December 2023, is the author of a collection in English that was critically acclaimed when it was released in 2022. Published in French by Julliard, this October 3, What you will find hidden in my ear “is inspired by a deep humanity” and by growing up in a “constant isolation”, underlines Al-Ayyam, the daily newspaper of Ramallah.
This collection is part of a rich Palestinian literary tradition, particularly oriented towards poetry, and which for many Arab media is today valuable for better understanding the identity and history of the Palestinians, beyond the wars.
Brief overview in three steps.
1. Mosab Abu Toha: poems full of rubble
Al-Ayyam describes Mosab Abu Toha’s work as follows: “Like the Gaza Strip itself, the poems are full of rubble and the ever-present danger of drones watching over people who are not welcome in their land, and they are also full of the smell of tea, of rose bushes flowers, and the view of the sea at sunset. Children are born, families continue their traditions, students go to university and libraries rise from the rubble, while Palestinians continue to live, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive.”
Written before the start of Israel’s war against the Gaza Strip, What you’ll find hidden in my ear had won the American Book Award and the Palestinian Book Award and made its author emerge as an important voice in Palestinian literature.
After being arrested during the first months of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha fled the enclave. Since then, he has continued to tell the story of exile and the pain that inhabits him in poems and articles published by the American or Arab press. A pain that is part of a long history of Israeli occupation, since the Nakba in 1948, notes Felesteen.
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