“Broken bottles under children’s feet/Bodies strewn across the dead-end street/But I won’t heed the battle call/It puts my back up/Puts my back up against the wall.” – ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ by U2

ow much do you really know about Palestine? You might know about the atrocities Palestinian people are living under as one of the many countries where violence has made citizens survivalists almost unconsciously.

As an outsider - with a country seeped in political oscillations, a depressed economy, a society that is embracing myopia rapidly, and a country running on loans from other countries - we have our own pressing problems to deal with, enough that the Palestinian cause is a passing story we skim through.

Some of us, who do not skim, might know a tad more. Some may have even taken part in protests about the airstrikes, bombings and the loss of life, in digital fashion or through a protest rally with the call being asking for the rights of Palestinian people.

Some of us find the atrocities in Palestine a moment in time where the Muslim world as a collective must speak in the global political echelons and highlight it, in a bid to stop the violence, suffering and anguish-filled lives.

However, no matter how much we think we know through news consumed via certain news sites or television channels, we know very little. Until we’ve walked in their shoes, we can’t really know what it feels like, particularly if it is a daily occurrence and for some has been so since they were born.

To understand the experience of Palestinian people, as individuals, or as a collective, you must grab a copy of Letters to Palestine: Writers respond to war and occupation, edited by Vijay Prashad.

The essays, written by a mix of prominent and lesser-known writers with different nationalities such as Teju Cole, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ben Ehrenreich, Junot Diaz, Randa Jarrar, Robin D.G. Kelley, Naomi Shihab Nye, Corey Robin, Najla Said, Sarah Schulman, Sinan Antoon, and a litany of others, are divided under three headings: Conditions, War Reports, and Politics.

But it is by no means a linear reading experience. You can start from the first essay or begin from an essay tucked in the middle. Every essay has one thing in common with the others: all of them are written in beautiful prose-style and each of them has found a way of speaking about Palestinian struggles, sufferings and hope. They aren’t just impressive but drenched in anguish and suffering, joy and hope, violence and acceptance, and feel so personal that it is like being there, in the middle of a Palestinian home and watching what their daily lives feel like. As far as the whole writings go, they are so superior that it is hard to put down this collection of essays once you start reading.

What must be added, given the times we, too, live in, remember that it is not for the faint-hearted. This is a collection of essays that will make you wonder about Palestine, imperialism as well as the human condition and how war and occupation is a recurring narrative in so many countries even today, decades after mankind has made advances like going to the moon. Why couldn’t we find a way to live peacefully is also a perplexing question that will come to mind.

Expressing erudite observations, with grit, wit and great heart, each essay is as unique as it is arresting. And for that reason, reading it might even be necessary for it might change your own ideas about this country ravaged by occupation. Highly recommended!

– Find a copy on daraz.pk if book stores near you don’t stock it.