Lababidi’s Palestine Wail calls for the simplest, barest humanity, and it reminds us that loss of life, occupation, and genocide take an impossible toll on everyone. Finally, it holds us all accountable to address injustice, to dispel oppression and to work toward collaborative and restorative justice. In our interview, we focused on what he saw as our responsibility to humanity. — How Hope Outlasts Despair: An Interview with Yahia Lababidi — https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/how-hope-outlasts-despair-an-interview-with-yahia-lababidi
…a poignant message of compassion and hope, the kind beautifully expressed by Yahia Lababidi in his #book #Palestine Wail,
@DarajaPress.
“Since purchasing the book, I have read the poem every day—it tends to feed my imagination.” https://boundlessphilanthropy.com/writings/tending-the-imagination-the-practice-of-creativity-care-challenge-compassion #poetry #Gaza
Renowned aphorist Yahia Lababidi’s Palestine Wail writes alongside a catastrophe beyond words, trying to shelter in words what remains of our humanity. To be a Minister of Loneliness and Lightkeeper, tending to the light. — Philip Metres, author of Fugitive/Refuge
Palestine is personal for writer, Yahia Lababidi. His Palestinian grandmother, Rabiha Dajani — educator, activist & social worker — was forced to flee her ancestral home in Jerusalem, at gunpoint, some eighty years ago.
As an Arab-American, Lababidi feels deeply betrayed by the USA’s blind support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
In Palestine Wail, he reminds us that religion is not politics, Judaism is not Zionism, and to criticize the immoral, illegal actions of Israel is not antisemitism — especially since, as an Arab, Lababidi is a Semite, himself.
Using both poetry and prose, Lababidi reflects on how we are neither our corrupt governments, nor our compromised media. Rather, we are partners in humanity, members of one human family. Not in Our Name will the unholy massacres of innocent Palestinians be committed (two-thirds of whom are women and children) nor in the false name of ‘self-defense’.
In turn, Lababidi reminds us that starvation as a weapon of war is both cruel and criminal, as is collective punishment.
Palestine Wail invites us to bear witness to this historical humanitarian crisis, unfolding in real-time, while not allowing ourselves to be deceived, intimidated or silenced. We are made aware of the basic human truths that no lasting peace can be founded upon profound injustice and that the jailor is never Free…
Yahia Lababidi, an Arab-American writer of Palestinian background, has crafted a poignant collection which serves as a heartfelt tribute to the Palestinian people, their struggles, and their resilience in the face of an ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The collection, described as a love letter to Gaza, draws inspiration from the rich literary tradition of Palestinian resistance literature. Lababidi, known for his critically-acclaimed books of aphorisms, essays, and poetry, brings his unique voice to this personal, political and spiritual work.
Palestine Wail addresses us in a variety of voices: outrage, lamentation and pity, in attempting to honor the pain of the oppressed Palestinian people, while also celebrating their enduring spirit.
Lababidi’s Wail, ultimately, is a prayerful work seeking peace, healing and reconciliation—a testament to the transformative power of literature to keep hope alive in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
These are necessary and truthful poems. Yahia Lababidi powerfully illuminates this heartbreaking time and terrible season in the history of our world. This book, like a lantern in darkness, brings to light the truth of lives we must learn to honor and remember. — James Crews, author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Creativity, and Self-Compassion
Yahia Lababidi’s stunning and resonant collection, Palestine Wail, addresses the outrage felt by many of the oppressed Palestinian supporters and more. He also speaks of the lamentations of his people and the show of pity, compassion, and empathy from many members of the human family from all around the world. — The Indefatigable Longing For Peace And Rapprochement In Yahia Lababidi’s Palestine Wail By Michael Parker.
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Yahia Lababidi, author of eleven collections of poetry and prose. His aphorisms and poems have gone viral and are used in classrooms and religious services and have been featured at international film festivals. Lababidi has also contributed to news, literary,…
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Pius Adesanmi died in the doomed Ethiopian Airline flight 302 on March 10, 2019. Wreaths for a Wayfarer: An Anthology in Honour of Pius Adesanmi is an assemblage of 267 original poems written by 127 established and emerging African writers. While some of the poets celebrate Adesanmi, others reflect philosophically on existence, mortality, immortality and/or offer hope for the living. In this memorably textured collection, the poets – some who knew, and some who did not know Adesanmi – exorcise the pains of loss through provocative poems that pour out their beating hearts with passion.
Pius Adesanmi died in the doomed Ethiopian Airline flight 302 on March 10, 2019. Wreaths for a Wayfarer: An Anthology in Honour of Pius Adesanmi is an assemblage of 267 original poems written by 127 established and emerging African writers. While some of the poets celebrate Adesanmi, others reflect philosophically on existence, mortality, immortality and/or offer hope for the living. In this memorably textured collection, the poets – some who knew, and some who did not know Adesanmi – exorcise the pains of loss through provocative poems that pour out their beating hearts with passion.
Love after Babel is a collection of poems that deal with themes such as caste, the resistance of Dalit people, Dalit literature, islamophobia and other political themes, with almost one hundred poems divided into three sections (Call Me Ishmail Tonight; Name Me a Word; Love after Babel). The introduction is by Suraj Yengde (award-winning scholar and activist from India, author of the bestseller Caste Matters, inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Initiative for Institutional Anti-racism and Accountability, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School).
Chandramohan’s poems are dialogues of the ‘ self’ with the ‘other’. He brings to life a world that subverts myths, literary canons, gender and caste stereotypes by pooling in sparklingly new metaphors with sensitivity and care. He draws his images from contemporary incidents as well as myths and legends of yore, and delves deep into the politicized realm, thus ‘rupturing the hymen of demarcations’ of identity, resistance, repression and love.
These memoirs bear witness to the harrowing reality of survival during the devastating war on Gaza. Through vivid personal narratives, they capture the daily struggle for existence—the scarcity of food and water, the constant threat of bombardment, and the profound psychological trauma. Yet, they delve far deeper than mere physical survival, exploring the profound wounds of displacement: the heartbreak of leaving behind a home, a street, a neighborhood, and the irreplaceable fragments of a life forever shattered.
The pages reveal families huddled in schools-turned-shelters, sharing morsels of bread and whispering prayers for a safe dawn. This collection is both a testament and an act of resistance. It refuses to let the world reduce human beings to mere statistics, insisting instead on honoring every story, every face, and every name. It bears witness not only to the destruction but also to the unbroken spirit of a people determined to live, dream, and rise again.
While rooted in immense suffering, these narratives are also profound meditations on dignity, love, and an unshakable will to persevere. At once personal and collective, they amplify the voices of a generation too often silenced by conflict, posing urgent questions about justice, memory, and the future. They ensure these essential stories are never buried beneath rubble or lost to cold statistics.
In the midst of fire and fear, these words declare: “We are still here. We remember.” This act of testimony—to feel, to survive, and to hold onto love when the world offers none—becomes the most honest act of living. Through these pages, the reader is invited not only into a world of unimaginable hardship but also into the profound depths of human endurance, the richness of Arab culture, and the unwavering faith that guides a people forward.
The poems here were written during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most were circulated through What’s App voice notes, an intimate way of keeping distance while reaching out to touch. The poems speak to experiences and occurrences during the first wave in different parts of the world and the pressing need to make love as global and infectious as the novel corona virus. This collection is a prelude to “29 leads to love”, a collection that explores more fully the grand notion of love which began coming to the fore in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has largely re-submerged.
Dispossessed is a poetic representation of life in three stages through the eyes of a poet. It shows, from the thematic interests of the poet; what he considers the crucial stages in life – Innocence, Transgression and Atonement.
Innocence offers a racy view of the picture gallery of the poet’s life as a child. The sensibilities of the poet shine through the foliage of his mind as he pines for self-definition; seeking open ears for his verses. But it is also a period of apprenticeship as the poet hones his skills for the artistic long journey that is inevitable. Clothed in the innocence of childhood, he learns to talk in metaphors and search for himself in the community of imaginative people. This search lights up the path into the poet’s aesthetic mindscape and the silent questions that keep him awake. Innocence is therefore a thirst for sunlight; a quest for utterance.
The unwary reader is beckoned into the quest through poems that evoke memories of their own childhood and conscript them into the ensuing communal experience. However, the human condition abhors inertia. But for any form of natural or artistic growth to occur, the poet must lose his innocence. So, Innocence and its poems of idyllic childhood soon give way to the unexpected — Transgression. Transgression is the coming of age segment of the collection. The poet discovers love. And slowly, he finds himself taking a dip in a pool of emotion that appears to serve as the ultimate sparkplug for his songs.
In essence, Transgression eases the reader into a rare observatory; from where the poet could be seen falling in and out of love and celebrating one of the most profound experiences known to man. It must be noted that in some instances, the love poems of Transgression are also not what they seem on the surface. In some instances, the poet addresses his troubled relationship with his country through poetry; mirroring his personal frustrations and disappointment in verses that come off as a voice of disenchantment. Caught in the firm grip of emotions, the poet changes like the English weather.
But after waves of emotional whirlwinds in Transgression, the poet faces the next logical step — Atonement. Atonement presents a poet who has undergone the rites of passage and weaned himself of self-doubts. He has washed his hands clean and must settle down to a fireside dinner with the elders. But as it turns out, the poet is not only seeking the ears of his genealogical ancestors and elders; he is also seeking the counsel of serious poets, past and present whose nod he needs to take on the weighty issues of his time. So, he comes with a “fistful of kolanuts” as is customary with his people who supplicate their elders and ancestors with kolanuts. In gaining entry into this conclave of his biological and artistic ancestors, he acquires the aesthetic authority to ask weighty questions about the world around him. He is incensed by what assails his sensibilities; a world that turns a blind eye to injustice and a humanity that needs an open heart surgery.
Atonement could also be seen as the poet’s personal admission that serious poetry ought to speak to the dominant issues of the day; the anxieties and insomnia of the age. He muses about these issues; posing rhetorical questions in about them in some instances.
In the end, dispossessed is one man’s journey that finally assumes all the attributes of a communal voyage. Treading in the imagined interstices between the personal and the communal, dispossessed leads us to a clearing in the woods where our awareness of our world heightens with the turning of every page.
James Eze was born in Enugu, southeast Nigeria, shortly after the Biafran War. He was the pioneer Literary Editor of Sunday Sun. As Head of External Communications at Fidelity Bank, he worked in partnership with the novelist Chimamanda Adichie to begin her popular International Creative Writing Workshop series. He is the curator of Under African Skies which hosts A Flutter in the Woods; a yearly evening of poetry and songs in Awka, Anambra State. He also co-founded The Return to Idoto, a poetry festival in honour of Christopher Okigbo. His poems have appeared in Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writing from Nigeria.
Nikesha Breeze has taken pages from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, taken his words, and forced them to leave his colonized mind. She has made the words her own in poetic form. She illuminates the invisible Black voices inside, a radical, surgical, and unapologetic Black appropriation, at the same time as a careful birthing and spiritual road map. The resulting poems are sizzling purifications, violent restorations of integrity, pain, wound, bewilderment, rage, and, sometimes, luminous generosity. This is a work of Reclamation. The author, Nikesha Breeze, has slowly, page by page, reclaimed the text of the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This racist turn-of-the-19th-century book was pivotal in the continued dehumanization of Black people and in particular of African people, as it painted an image of bestiality on the Congo people and the continent. It is laced with racist imagery and language. The author has reappropriated the book, page by page, making “BlackOut” poetry for each page, isolating methodically the words to create new poems of power and black voice within the text —stealing the language and reappropriating the power.
Since the start of the unfolding genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, carried out through settler-colonial Israeli violence, higher education institutions have been systematically destroyed. Campuses lie in ruins, academics and students have been killed or forcibly displaced, and what was once a thriving, intellectually vibrant student population now lives under daily threat of bombardment, forced starvation, and death. For nearly two years, students have been cut off not only from their universities, but from their dreams, their futures, and even their most basic sense of safety.
Yet, despite this unimaginable trauma, many are still writing.
We Are Still Here is an anthology of these voices—raw, unfiltered, and courageous. It features short and long stories, poems, essays, and testimonies written by students from Gaza’s universities. These are not retrospective reflections or distant analyses; they are real-time words, emerging from the depths of genocide, displacement, and grief. These writings may be their last hopes to reach the world, a final act of resistance through expression.
Surviving at the darkest extremes of suffering, of destruction and displacement, famine and the constant threat of maiming or death, these young writers speak to us with piercing lucidity. Their resilience is their only form of optimism. Paradoxically, reading them lifts the heart.
– Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and Enduring Love
A moving, painful and yet hopeful collection of the younger generation of the people of Gaza. Sumud, resilience, was never so powerful and clear, as it appears in this must read and urgent collection. —Ilan Pappé, professor, University of Exeter’s College of Social Sciences and International Studies, author, A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
In the heart of suffering, words are born — and from beneath the rubble, creativity rises. This book is more than a collection of written pages; it is the echo of resilient souls and the cries of pens that spoke when voices were silenced. — Professor Dr. Omar Kh. Melad, President of Al-Azhar University– Gaza
We Are Still Here is not a book about war — it is a book about being alive after the world has decided you are already gone, written in rooms that may no longer stand. These pages are dispatches from the thin edge of the present: letters from hunger, fragments of interrupted lives, flashes of hope so unyielding it burns. Here, young people shape the record of their time on earth, knowing that their time may be short. You will not leave this book with the comfort of closure. It will stay with you long after the final page has turned. — Leila Sansour, filmmaker and founder of Open Bethlehem
These Gaza poignant reflections in prose and poetry from the midst of genocide are both heart-rending and full of life and promise. Israel may have physically killed many of their young authors, but will never kill their words, which live on in this powerful collection of their writings. — Ghada Karmi,
Discover The Shadow: Poems for the Children of Gaza, a poignant collection by Palestinian poet Ahmed Miqdad and Maltese-Canadian poet John P. Portelli. Written amidst the horrors of Gaza’s genocide and the personal battle with cancer, these 42 poems bear witness to the intersection of political violence and personal mortality. Through raw emotion and lyrical defiance, the poets forge solidarity across borders, offering a glimmer of hope in the face of erasure.
Featuring evocative art by Malak Mattar and a foreword by Professor Jamil Khader, this collection is a call to remember, resist, and reclaim humanity. A portion of proceeds will support Palestinian relief efforts.
Richard Modiano
Yahia Lababidi’s new collection of poetry Palestine Wail offers a profound and poignant exploration of human emotions, social injustices, and the resilience of the human spirit. Lababidi weaves together themes of hope, suffering, and solidarity with a keen sensitivity that resonates deeply.— Richard Modiano https://synchchaos.com/richard-modiano-reviews-yahia-lababidis-poetry-collection-palestine-wail/
Angele Ellis
Angele Ellis: Love in a Time of Genocide | In Palestine Wail, Yahia Lababidi seeks the redemption of the human soul: Yahia Lababidi’s eleventh book draws on the spiritual and aphoristic traditions of Middle Eastern and Arab American poetry—from Rumi to Kahlil Gibran—as well as on its vein of political and social critique. This makes Lababidi’s brief free verse poems at once meditations on peace and bulletins from the battlefield.
In his introduction to this collection, Lababidi references not only the Sufi mystic Rumi and the Christian allegorist Gibran, but a range of notable writers and rebels of the past century, including Martin Luther King, Scott Peck, Leonard Cohen, and Elie Wiesel.
In a passionate afterword, Lababidi evokes the spirits of Palestinian poets Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) and Refaat Alareer (1979-2023)—separated by a generation, yet both killed by Israeli bombs, along with members of their families. He advocates for an end to the “daily horrors” which since this past October, have deprived 2.3 million Palestinians of their homes. According to the latest figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, and thousands more are buried under rubble and threatened by illness.
Tina Bexson
‘Palestine Wail’ by Yahia Lababidi, reviewed by Tina Bexson
Lababidi began writing Palestine Wail – in effect, a love letter to Gaza – after October 7th last year. Its introduction and afterword, both written by the author, include ample references to others; mostly poets such as Rumi and Gibran, but also writers, activists, artists, scholars, and intellectuals.
How any poet can hope to do justice to the magnitude of Gaza may seem baffling. For it is mostly beyond words. But Lababidi does, at least as far as it is possible to do so. Also by acknowledging the futility of words – especially if insincerely expressed – he deftly uses his prose and poems to explore the relentless horror, anguish, and suffering; the understandable resulting anger; and then something – however intangible – resembling trust, compassion, and hope. He warns us that if we ignore the latter – which he refers to as ‘spiritual laws’ – the repercussions will be insurmountable. Throughout Palestine Wail, he ultimately attempts to transcend ire and embrace hope, emphasising the moral duty we have towards each other.
In light of recent evidence including that from Israel’s network of torture camps and prisons, these monstrosities likely extend way beyond what has been exposed so far. Then there is the growing 95,000 injured and the 1.9 million people displaced.
Lababidi calls out the complicity of so-called democratic Western leaders in one of the world’s longest running, unresolved wars of the twenty-first century. The seeds of which in truth were partly planted by Europe – especially the British with Balfour – over a century ago – resulting in a ‘war’ that has cumulated in the genocide of all genocides.
The continued danger of this blinded complicity means that Israel will not only extend its atrocities but will never be held accountable in any way either.
By far one of the worst genocides of the twenty-first century, Gaza will go down in history for generations to come, just as the Holocaust did. And does. And along with its silence and complicity, not dissimilar to that of Nazi Germany.
Israel is now seen to be exploiting its war on Gaza to justify actions against Palestinians and to expand control over Gaza and the West Bank.
I await further work from Yahia Lababidi.
Amanda Holmes Duffy
Poetry is also song in language. And what is song if not harmony in which we might find healing? Writing from the Palestinian diaspora, Yahia Lababidi, an Egyptian American of Palestinian descent, dedicates Palestine Wail (Daraja Press) to his grandmother, Rabiha Dajani. “Forced to flee her ancestral home in Palestine at gunpoint nearly 80 years ago,” he writes, “she went on to become a remarkable educator, activist, and social worker.”
The collection’s opening section, “Unbearable Casualties,” is angry, confused, and conflicted. You feel the poet trying to write himself sane (his phrase to me in a recent communication). Perhaps some of these poems hatched a little early, but the subsequent sections, “Lingering at the Threshold” and “On a Far Shore,” are marked by spiritual and philosophical yearning. For him, during Ramadan:
To fast is to slow down
Almost to a stillness
And distill what is necessary:
Sacrifice, patience, obedience
— In other words, radical gratitude.
He also reaches for wise humor in such poems as “Minister of Loneliness,” which is an actual position recently formed by the U.K. government. He writes:
Successful candidates must be virtuosos of suffering
sensitive, of course, yet impervious to lingering sadness
tirelessly capable of encouraging others despite,
at times, feeling defeated or assaulted by pointlessness
Lababidi continually endeavors to tend the light during times of darkness. To breathe in his poems is to embark on a journey from a heartfelt wail of sorrow and despair into silent prayer.
—Amanda Holmes Duffy https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-poetry-september-2024
James Crews
The collection, described as a love letter to Gaza, draws inspiration from the rich literary tradition of Palestinian resistance literature. Lababidi, known for his critically-acclaimed books of aphorisms, essays, and poetry, brings his unique voice to this personal, political and spiritual work.
Palestine Wail addresses us in a variety of voices: outrage, lamentation and pity, in attempting to honor the pain of the oppressed Palestinian people, while also celebrating their enduring spirit.
Lababidi’s Wail, ultimately, is a prayerful work seeking peace, healing and reconciliation—a testament to the transformative power of literature to keep hope alive in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
These are necessary and truthful poems. Yahia Lababidi powerfully illuminates this heartbreaking time and terrible season in the history of our world. This book, like a lantern in darkness, brings to light the truth of lives we must learn to honor and remember. — James Crews, author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Creativity, and Self-Compassion
Michael Parker
Yahia Lababidi’s stunning and resonant collection, Palestine Wail, addresses the outrage felt by many of the oppressed Palestinian supporters and more. He also speaks of the lamentations of his people and the show of pity, compassion, and empathy from many members of the human family from all around the world. — The Indefatigable Longing For Peace And Rapprochement In Yahia Lababidi’s Palestine Wail By Michael Parker.
Shohreh Laici
Yahia Lababidi’s poems conjure a seemingly impossible future in the Middle East that readers can imagine now. He shows a kind of world that can only exist if there is freedom of expression in the first place. … Lababidi attempts to build a language in Palestine Wail that challenges the dominant lexicon about Gaza and Israel. He is protecting language—the ability to call things what they are—and in doing so, he is protecting humanity. … Because of his struggle to get Palestine Wail even published, Lababidi’s poetry, and its cry for peace, took on new meaning for me—about the ability to speak openly, to express yourself freely. A poet’s identity is to use words to create new language. A poet’s responsibility is to create language that challenges institutions of power and revolts against the domineering narratives in society, especially when they try to restrict any alternative. When a publisher like the one who dropped Lababidi’s book threatens words themselves, free expression itself is threatened.— Shohreh Laici https://dawnmena.org/on-yahia-lababidis-palestine-wail-and-the-poetry-of-free-expression/
Jewish Voice for Labour
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/a-poetic-love-letter-to-gaza-a-belief-in-hope/
Palestinian poets have long been – and remain – important within the struggle for justice. Yahia Lababidi has published many collections of poetry an d prose and we commend his latest. Below we also publish an interview with the publisher of his latest work. But take it perhaps from Ken Loach who says of “Palestine Wail”: ‘In their simplicity and poignancy these poems are immensely touching. They show that Palestinians, like all of us, find solace from the eternal rhythms of the natural world. And this at a time when they struggle to survive in the midst of the horrors and cruelty inflicted on them by Israel and their powerful supporters. Please read Yahia Lababidi’s poems, and share his glimpse of hope in the darkest of times.’ Yahia Lababidi cannot help but be political and he, like so many who speak out, has faced censorship; in an interview with PEN America when asked about experience of censorship he said: “In a two hour Zoom meeting, the publisher let me know that they were uneasy with my use of words like Genocide, even murder — as they felt that it was “prejudging a legal matter” — and they went so far as to suggest that if they were to publish my book, it would result in scandal for them and some of their authors would walk out.” (his complete answer to the question and link to the interview is at the end of this post, Ed.)
Ken Loach
‘In their simplicity and poignancy these poems are immensely touching. They show that Palestinians, like all of us, find solace from the eternal rhythms of the natural world. And this at a time when they struggle to survive in the midst of the horrors and cruelty inflicted on them by Israel and their powerful supporters. Please read Yahia Lababidi’s poems, and share his glimpse of hope in the darkest of times.’
Rebecca Romani
Lababidi links Gaza clearly to other genocides, passing through Elie Wiesel to the memories of genocide at the hands of the American government for the Lakota and Dakota Sioux at Standing Rock. It is these genocides as well as the Armenian Genocide of the early 20th century, which formed the backbone of the Final Solution and now find their echo in the events in Gaza.
Lababidi invokes other writers, other voices such as the Persian poet Rumi and the Lebanese writer, Khalil Gibran to lend fullness to his grief. But Lababidi also uses this opening essay to encourage the reader to be open to the thought that wounded people (those acted against), often turn that violence on others and to reflect that our modern societies are often wounded both by what was done to us and what we have done in return.
[…]
Flowers, trees, birds, music, and sunshine, break through the fog of despair that lingers over the collection. It is no accident that Lababidi invokes nature, almost like a major component of hope and healing. The garden, a collaboration with nature, is stronger than the urbicide – the murder of urban centers. Olive trees that have stood for centuries, flowers that bloom every season recall the beauty and magic of Islamic gardens which themselves serve as invocations of Paradise.
—Rebecca Romani https://www.palestinechronicle.com/to-mourn-is-to-be-human-a-review-of-palestinian-wail-by-yahia-lababidi/
Soha Hesham
This poignant collection in Palestine Wail is a blend of poetry and prose in which Lababidi underscores a crucial distinction between religion and politics, and Judaism that should not be confused with Zionism, articulating how people are not defined by their governments or the biased narratives of the media. The collection delves deeply into the humanitarian crisis that’s been going on for more than a year in Gaza and is a call for people to speak out against lies and silence. Lababidi captures the struggle of the Palestinian people as well as their exceptional resilience. — Soha Hesham, https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/536781.aspx
Narendra Pachkede
In just under 100 pages, Lababidi weaves grief, rage, and compassion into a tapestry of moral clarity, forcing readers to confront the cost of indifference. If his words are not heeded, Gaza will indeed stand as a testament to one of the most egregious genocides of the century, its suffering echoing across generations—much like the Holocaust, with silence and complicity damning us all over again.— Narendra Pachkede, https://timesheadline.in/en/2024/12/31/peace-lily/
Omar Sabbagh
These poems are raw and moving. While in one sense Lababidi is realistic enough to recognize “The Limits
of Love,” as one title has it, in another, he can speak of the “limitless heart” (“Walls”). This returns me to Gillian Rose [Mourning Becomes the Law]. One of her final insights in life turned on the capacity of the individual to recognize that the only “unconditionality” of love was to be found in its very
conditionality. And Lababidi’s book lives this out, by its continuous questioning of and between self and other, there and here, now and then – our wounds, again, as “peepholes.” And at the last, the Palestinian wail has been heard – and may it be heard the more and more and more.- Omar Sabbagh, review in Two Thirds North, 2025 p164-8.https://www.su.se/department-of-english/research/publications/two-thirds-north-1.645406
Madelaine Caritas Longman
This collection will appeal to those seeking an introduction to the realities of life in Gaza, and to those seeking a hopeful voice in a devastating time. Montreal Review of Books. Madelaine Caritas Longman https://mtlreviewofbooks.ca/reviews/palestine-wail/