Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine (Pluto Press, 2021)

Edited by Diana Allan
Afterword by Rosemary Sayigh

During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba - which translates to ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’ - lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight.

Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it.

The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.

Endorsements:
“Moving and thoughtful [...] With their silences, ellipses and jags of storytelling, the refugee voices invite us to imagine the lives torn asunder by the violence of the Nakba"
– Laleh Khalili, Queen Mary University of London, author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration

"The stories gathered here are the fruit of perseverant gathering. Their careful, deliberate, loving translation bear the sense and sensualities of Palestinian existence. 'Voices of the Nakba' shows how and why those who will not forget will never be forgotten"
– Fred Moten, cultural theorist and author of The Feel Trio

About the editor:
Diana Allan is Associate Professor of Anthropology at McGill University. She is a filmmaker and the co-founder of the Nakba Archive. Her ethnography, Refugees of the Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile, (Stanford University Press, 2013) won the MEMO Palestine academic book award and the American Anthropological Association, Middle East Section Award.

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Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine