an evening with Palestinian writer Atef Abu Saif
Palestinian writer Atef Abu Saif was swimming with his family when he heard the first bombs on October 7, 2023. For three months, he kept a diary of what he experienced in Gaza: the drones, the bombings, the horrors. Months later, after he managed to flee the country, he discovered that his library had also been destroyed. Not only had his carefully preserved books been lost, but also the manuscripts of his very first stories, which he wrote from prison at the age of nineteen. “I still remember the plots of those stories. But the stories themselves, like the lives of 50,000 Gazans, have been erased in this war.”
On this evening, Naeeda Aurangzeb will talk with Atef Abu Saif about writing as a form of resistance and his motivation to continue telling the stories of Gazans. Writer Rashid Novaire will provide an introduction to Abu Saif’s work.
The American Book Center will be selling books by Abu Saif at the event.
Current Literary Affairs is an interview series by SLAA and Read My World that explores current events through the lens of literature, engaging in conversations with writers from around the world. How does the political situation in their country affect their lives and work? What do we really need to talk about? Urgent conversations about fear and hope, anger and pride, the personal and the political, books and art.
This edition of Current Literary Affairs is a collaboration with De Nieuwe Liefde and media partner De Groene Amsterdammer.
Atef Abu Saif
Atef Abu Saif (1973) is a Palestinian writer, political scientist, and former Minister of Culture of the Palestinian Authority. He was born in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and has published several novels, including A Suspended Life, which was nominated for the World Prize for Arab Fiction in 2015. His poignant diaries from Gaza have been published in outlets such as The New York Times and The Nation. They are collected in Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide (2024). His earlier Gaza diaries were published as The Drone Eats Me (2015).
Rashid Novaire
Rashid Novaire began writing at a young age and won the El Hizjra Literature Prize. He has written several novels, including The Song of the Skate, Origin, and Just Say We’re Not Home. Novaire has been nominated twice for the Libris Literature Prize. His new novel, 28 Letters, will be published by Ambo|Anthos in January 2026. He has also written for theater, including Bellevue lunch theater and the Bavarian State Theater. During the lecture tour young.euro.connect, he met Atef Abu Saif and continued to follow his work.
Naeeda Aurangzeb
Naeeda Aurangzeb (born 1974) is a journalist and radio and television presenter. For NTR, she hosted De halve maan and co-hosted Bureau Buitenland at NPO. She also worked as a reporter on Radio 1 for Nieuws en Co. Previously, she published Verdreven Palestijnen (Displaced Palestinians) and produced the documentaries Met het gezicht naar het Oosten (Facing East) and Kerstnacht Bethlehem (Christmas Night Bethlehem). She lived and worked for several years in Tel Aviv-Jerusalem and the United States. In 2021, she wrote Hé lekker ding. 365 dagen vrouw en 365 dagen Nederlander (Hey Gorgeous. 365 Days a Woman and 365 Days a Dutch Citizen), reflecting on her experiences as a woman and a person of color.
Would you like to attend this program, but don’t have the means to pay for a ticket? Send an email to info@denieuweliefde.com, we can work something out.
