Join Comma Press on 7 April at 7pm London time for an online roundtable discussion of Palestine - 1: Stories from the Eve of the Nakba. Featuring authors George Abraham, Ibtisam Azem and Lina Meruane alongside editor Basma Ghalayini.

How can literature respond to a genocide. Is it even possible to write fiction after witnessing the horrors inflicted on Gaza?

The contributors to Palestine - 1 attempt to answer this question, ignoring the lie that history began in October 2023, and addressing the great crime that underpins the entire occupation: the invasion and systematic annihilation of Palestine in 1948, displacing over 750,000 people, and stealing 80% of their land – the event collectively remembered as ‘the Nakba’.

Using literary devices typically associated with the horror genre – dreams, visions, ghosts, djinn, doppelgangers and divided selves – these authors explore the lead-up to 1948 and its aftermath, inviting readers to question the very realities that we, safe in the West, have built for ourselves.

If the first casualty of war is truth, the last is often the peace of mind of those who are invaded – a generational trauma, in the case of Palestinians, that haunts them in a language that fantasy and speculative fiction can certainly speak to.

Register here to attend.

In a world of violence, how can we respond beyond our own immediate horror? What strategies for struggle and solidarity exist when confronting imperialism, genocide, incarceration and starvation? What is the role of writing, reading and speaking when the violence is so immediate?

To address these questions, the Centre for the Study of Race, Class and Empire at Queen Mary University of London will be hosting the Palestinian public intellectual, scholar, commentator, novelist and former bus driver Steven Salaita, on 8th April 2026 5.30pm-8pm. Currently Professor and Chair in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo, Steven will be visiting the UK for the first time since 2014.

Please register quickly for this unique opportunity to hear one of the world’s most powerful advocates for Palestinian and human liberation.

Register here.

Names Not Numbers: Stories from Gaza brings together four short documentaries that bear witness to life, loss, and survival under genocide.

Since October 7th, 2023, the people of Gaza have endured relentless bombardment, displacement, and loss. The world sees numbers, death tolls, displacement figures, statistics that grow by the day. But behind every number is a name. Behind every name, a story.

This edition features four Palestinians who agreed to share their stories with the world: Ramez Al-Souri, Ayah Al-Sousi, Sami Issa Ramadan Aby Ameira, and Sabreen Budwan. They speak of homes reduced to rubble, of family members lost to strikes, of successive displacements and the struggle to survive.

Filmed inside Gaza by journalists Ruwaida Amer and Mahmoud Almashahrawi, these testimonies capture what statistics cannot: the weight of grief, the strength of community, and the profound humanity of those who refuse to be erased.

These are their stories, told in their own words.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, Ruwaida Amer.

Find out more and reserve your tickets here.

Poetry has long been Palestine’s most vital art form – a space where memory is safeguarded and resistance given voice. Spanning a century of upheaval and endurance, The Palestinian Wedding brings together twenty-one major poets in a powerful bilingual anthology.

First published almost forty years ago, this seminal collection has long been out of print — until now.

From the charged lyricism of Tawfiq Zayyad to the expansive imagery of Walid al-Halis; from the romantic cadences of Salma al-Jayyusi to the profound rootedness of Mahmoud Darwish, these poems chart the emotional and political landscape of modern Palestine. Together, they reveal a tradition in which love of land, grief, defiance and hope are inseparable.

Edited and introduced by the eminent scholar A.M. Elmessiri, the collection is arranged around six central themes – revolution, war, elegy, belonging, resistance and steadfastness – offering readers both an essential literary archive and a vital lens on Palestinian cultural history.

The Palestinian Wedding is out now in the UK, and out later this year in the US. You can order (or preorder) your copy from our Bookshop (UK / US).

As we try to build a self-sustaining media platform, we are experimenting with certain adverts that will pay $1+ for each user click! So, if you’d like to support us with a click, here’s a word from a sponsor:

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Elegy for Rafah – Doha Kahlout writes, in Katharine Halls’ translation, of just how central the Rafah crossing is to Gazans’ imaginations of leaving, and of returning: “How did our crossing—the gate we hoped might one day widen into a portal to the world—get so cramped and narrow?”

It Comes Down to This – A sparse new poem by Sara Abou Rashed memorializing Shireen Abu Akleh and the hundreds of other journalists murdered by Israel: “What loss. / What disbelief. / What grief. / What funeral. / What grief. / What distance. / What grief.”

From Palestine to Lebanon, A War Without Limits and the Wages of Impunity – Maya Mikdashi writes about the widening gyre of Israel’s “permanent war,” which seeks to create humanitarian disasters and to destroy civil society on all fronts, creating a power vacuum that it intends to fill.

Violence, Then Dessert: The Normalization of Israel’s Occupation in Palestinian Spaces – Mohammed Ahmad writes about the everyday nature and cognitive dissonance of the Israeli occupation, giving the example of Israeli soldiers eating knafeh after raiding homes in Nablus.

The Iran War Is About Palestine – Jonathan Shamir argues that the only reason Israel seeks war with Iran is because of the fundamental impasse that Palestine presents to the Zionist project.

Why Palestine Matters So Much to Queer People – Jad Salfiti writes about the common political horizons, grassroots campaigns, and organizing strategies shared between queer movements and the global movement for Palestine.

Short Cuts – Amjad Iraqi argues that the Israeli campaign to topple the Iranian government is an extension of the strategies it has engaged in Gaza over the course of the genocide.

The Management of Misery: A Scholar’s Prediction for Gaza’s Future – Jumana Maghari compares a set of 2019 predictions by a Gazan jurist about the threats looming over the future of Gaza with the state of life in Gaza now.

Translation and Solidarity in Times of Imperial Mass Violence – Yasmeen Hanoosh speaks to Elliott Colla about the politics of translating from Arabic and the prospect of solidaristic and decolonial translation that unsettles assumptions about Arabic and the Arab world.

Restoring Dignity to Gaza's Displaced – Khaled Al-Qershali describes the practices of communal distribution and mutual aid in the new camps for Gaza’s displaced, even despite Israel’s ongoing blockade on food and its destruction of Gaza’s aid regime.

“Erasing the Lines”: How Settlers Are Seizing New Regions of the West Bank – Oren Ziv and Ariel Caine report on how Israeli settlers have begun expanding from Area C of the West Bank to Areas B and A, emboldened by Israel’s international impunity over the past two years and with the full support of the Israeli military.

Palestinians in the West Bank Are Now Experiencing Multiple Settler Attacks Per Day – Naqaa Hamed reports on how settler incursions into the West Bank and violence against Palestinians has skyrocketed since the beginning of Israel’s illegal war on Iran.

Who Am I? – A new poem by Ramzi Salem: “I am the fugitive from the authority of my text, / returning from the defeats of poetry, / losing in rounds of loss.”

Two Poems – Two new poems by George Abraham: “maybe they are the land beneath / my wings because who can afford wind / in this economy srry not srry this poem is haunted enough / by the ghosts we once could dance with.”

If you’re enjoying The Key do refer your friends with your your unique reference code below. If five friends sign up we’ll send you a free .epub of Saleem Haddad’s brilliant new novel, Floodlines.

OK, that’s it from us all at PalFest and The Key. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Thursday with Issue 003.