The Key | A magazine from the Palestine Festival of Literature

Searching for the Normal in... the Abnormal

Sep 11, 2026

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8 min read

Searching for the Normal in... the Abnormal

“Nothing seems normal in these birth pangs where beginnings and endings play musical chairs.”

Mahmoud Darwish, +1

Current Issue

OPINION: Why I'm Suing Columbia University for Anti-Palestinian Discrimination

Maryam Alwan

Sep 11, 2026

OPINION: Why I'm Suing Columbia University for Anti-Palestinian Discrimination

Jul 30, 2026

“Everything Is Legitimate”: How Israel Uses Rape as a Tool of Genocide

The rape of Palestinian detainees is so commonplace that it’s no longer hidden. It’s filmed, joked about, and celebrated in parliament. This is no mistake; it’s core to Israel’s colonial project.

Jul 30, 2026

Desire to Be Known by a Name

“I am no longer an intellectual. My favorite artist is Ms. Rachel.”

Jul 30, 2026

Refusing Complicity

Five writers on what comes after boycott

Jul 30, 2026

Style Is Not Secondary

“Everyone living in the United States for long risks becoming stupid without a supreme effort to refuse it.”

Jul 30, 2026

The Difficulty of Nothing

“Though I know I did not stop the genocide, I know that I did not accelerate it either. That is not nothing.”

Jul 30, 2026

The Failure to Crossover

“Writing becomes both witness and wound”

Jul 30, 2026

The Insistence of the Scar

“The lineage of the repressed, the tradition of the oppressed, is nothing but a series of ongoing attempts to enact unrealized disorders.”

Jul 29, 2026

Hisham Matar's New Introduction to Edward Said's "Out Of Place"

From a forthcoming re-issue of the enduring autobiography

Jul 16, 2026

Guidelines for Life in a City Howling by the Sea

A poem by Mariam Al Khateeb

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Searching for the Normal in... the Abnormal

OPINION: Why I'm Suing Columbia University for Anti-Palestinian Discrimination

“Everything Is Legitimate”: How Israel Uses Rape as a Tool of Genocide

Desire to Be Known by a Name

Refusing Complicity

Style Is Not Secondary

The Difficulty of Nothing

The Failure to Crossover

The Insistence of the Scar

Hisham Matar's New Introduction to Edward Said's "Out Of Place"

Guidelines for Life in a City Howling by the Sea

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