Born in Gaza in 1978, Asmaa Alatawna is a Palestinian Bedouin from the desert of Al Naqb, and a French citizen and resident of Toulouse since 2001. A graduate of English literature from the University of Al Azhar, she then obtained her masters in geopolitics from Sciences Po. While in Gaza, Asmaa worked at the Spanish press agency EFE. Today, she is a member of the Institute for Experimental Arts La Petite board in the cinema domain. Alatawna is known for her involvement in art and gender issues.

Caline Nasrallah is a literary translator, editor, and researcher with a focus on language as a feminist tool. She has co-translated two novels, A Long Walk from Gaza being her third. Her editing and translation work spans fiction and non-fiction. She endeavors to put language at the service of liberation in each of her projects.

Michelle Hartman is a professor of Arabic Literature at McGill University and literary translator of fiction, based in Montreal. She has written extensively on women's writing and the politics of language use and translation and literary solidarities. She is the translator of several works from Arabic, including Radwa Ashour's memoir The Journey, Iman Humaydan's novels Wild Mulberries and Other Lives, Jana Elhassan's IPAF shortlisted novels The Ninety-Ninth Floor and All the Women Inside Me as well as Alexandra Chreiteh's novels Always Coca Cola and Ali and His Russian Mother.

"[The novel] recounts the individual struggle of a woman carving out a path to create a free life for herself. This woman is completely absorbed by finding freedom from all authority--the Israeli occupation, her father, and society alike. It is a novel written with honesty, courage, and a willingness to be confrontational, without fear of judgment. It is as if the writer is using her own words to say what the protagonist says to an Israeli soldier who tells her to get off the bus, 'I'm not getting off and I'm not moving from here. Stab me if you want!'"---- Maha Hassan

"A tale of trauma [and] a stirring book debut with a coming-of-age novel set amid Middle East turmoil ... Most of the novel recounts a past from which the narrator can never escape: humiliation at the hands of the occupiers, feuds and racism within the Afro-Palestinian community, loss and betrayals, and unremitting violence ... Sadly, a timely look at a brutal reality."---- Kirkus Reviews

Publisher: Interlink Books

Pub date: 2024-05-07

Length: 248 pages