A Year on the Abyss of Genocide

A daybook by Palestinian poet, editor, and curator Mahmoud Al-Shaer, A Year on the Abyss of Genocide is comprised periodic updates following Al-Shaer?s displacement and eventual return throughout a year in Gaza. Navigating self-reflection and public appeal for survival, A Year on the Abyss of Genocide is a work of dignity and intense introspection, and Al-Shaer?s poetic prose defies the spectacle of suffering, focusing on deep psychological states as he vacillates between despair, numbness, and hope.

Previously immersed in Gaza?s arts milieu, including at the helm of Gallery 28 in Rafah before it was destroyed by Israel, and programming at Al Ghussein Cultural House in Gaza City, in addition to publishing Magazine 28, Al-Shaer?s world was inexorably altered when his young family was displaced from the home he had spent years building. A Year on the Abyss of Genocide recounts the longing for Al-Shaer?s home, his gallery and cultural spaces, as it narrates his ongoing displacement, deep concerns for his children, and his repeat thwarted efforts to reunite, alongside his wife and daughter, with his young son and his mother in Turkey. His longing for his son, who had travelled to that country for medical treatment, leads him to reconsider his own father?s absence from his childhood after being killed by Israeli settlers. At the end of each of Mahmoud?s entries, he adds his appeal to the world outside of Gaza, a refrain that resounds increasingly through the text.

With an foreword by Palestinian curator and writer Nasrin Himada, and an afterword by Palestinian antiracism scholar Fadi Ennab, A Year on the Abyss of Genocide begins with an editor?s note from Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg editor Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, who met Al-Shaer through the Palestine Festival of Literature in 2023.