This week, Gaza’s reading community reels from the devastating loss of a beloved bookstore, and Sweden debates a new library to promote freedom of expression. In Hong Kong, leading literary voices pay homage on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, even as the annual Victoria Park vigil was canceled due to coronavirus concerns. Tour the literary world without leaving home; Asymptote‘s editors-at-large will punch your passport.
Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine
When his mobile phone rang at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, May 18, Samir Mansour was not asleep anyway, as the bombardment of Gaza was still on. The caller, the Israeli military, was asking if Mansour was inside his bookshop and publishing house, as they “didn’t want to hurt” him. They hung up, and shortly after, their shells reduced what was once “happy and loving memories” to a pile of rubble.
The beloved local bookshop, which stood on the ground floor of a larger building, was one of the two blockaded Gaza Strip’s largest sellers of books. The other bookshop, owned by Shaban Aslim, was also destroyed by an airstrike the same week. Mr. Aslim spoke of the work he put into creating his store in an interview, saying “this was my dream that cost me so much.”
To Palestinians living in Gaza, the two bookstores played a key role as a center of intellectual life, and their destruction represents the wider loss of culture in Gaza. Mansour’s bookshop, located near several universities, was also the unofficial home of several English-language book clubs, and printed and published works by local authors for the past twenty-one years. “Books are my life,” said Mansour, who would like to rebuild his store one day. Hopes are high that the bookstore will be rebuilt with donations after an online fundraiser was set up and managed by human rights lawyers.
A post to the bookshop’s Instagram page laments the loss of the sense of community the store offered to people in Gaza. But not all stories are lost! Tareq Hajjaj’s piece in Middle East Eye gives a glimpse of fear and loathing in Gaza from before the latest war. The Palestine Book Award, now celebrating its tenth year, is publishing Writing Palestine, with Arabic and English texts, which “uniquely brings together revered names.” The Award’s list of winners honors and endorses the best written in English on Palestine. And do not miss M. Lynx Qualey’s list of seventeen new books by Palestinian writers worth reading.
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
The Swedish Social Democrats wants a new library dedicated to the freedom of expression to open at Kulturhuset, a central Stockholm venue. A similar initiative was taken last year, when the City of Malmö established the Dawit Isaak Library at the city’s archives. Dawit Isaak is a Swedish-Eritrean journalist and writer, who has been held in Eritrean prison without a trial since 2001. In 2017 Isaak was awarded UNESCO’s Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. The Social Democrats in Stockholm are hoping that the new library, with a special focus on censored and banned books, will help increase awareness and dialogue. According to the party’s representative, this is important at a time when democracy and freedom of expression are increasingly questioned. Kulturhuset is a suitable location because it is familiar to people in Stockholm and has a tradition of facilitating debates and discussions. As there already is a library at Kulturhuset, the new library focusing on freedom of expression could possibly open as early as next year. In conjunction with this initiative, there is also a suggestion to increase Stockholm’s collaboration with ICORN, International Cities of Refuge Network. ICORN is an organization for advancing freedom of expression and defending democratic values, that runs a program for cities and regions to offer shelter to artists and writers who are at risk. Stockholm’s collaboration with ICORN is managed by Kulturhuset and offers artists or journalists a place to stay and financial support for up to two years. The suggestion is now to increase the number of recipients to four, from the current two.
Another new initiative in Sweden is the Pascal Engman Foundation’s grant for the furthering of reading, which announced its first recipient last week. Among 100 nominees, Anneli Glamsare was selected. After forty years in teaching, Glamsare continues to work passionately for everybody’s right to become a part of a reading community. Three years ago, she initiated a project for children on summer break to read in their spare time, a project that lives on today through youth who read with younger children. The new grant will be awarded annually to “an individual or organization that has furthered reading among youth in Sweden, and promote reading through different activities.”
Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
For the first time in thirty-two years, Hong Kong’s Victoria Park was empty as the annual June 4 vigil for the Tiananmen Square protests was banned on the grounds of COVID-19 restrictions. There was heavy police presence in different parts of town, a new reality under the year-old National Security Law, which effectively prohibits political dissent against the Chinese government. Nevertheless, people found different ways to commemorate—some lit candles at home and on the streets, while others posted coded groupings of objects in variations of “8964” (1989, June 4) on social media. Throughout the week, Cha, Hong Kong’s prominent English-language literary journal, shared entries about the historical event from its archive, including translations of Bei Dao and Lin Zhao’s poetry as well as a throwback to the feature “Tiananmen Thirty Years On,” co-edited by Lucas Klein and Tammy Lai-Ming Ho in 2019 with contributions from Duo Duo, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Waitong, Yang Lian, and more. Chinese-language literary journal Fleurs des lettres also pays homage with an online poetry feature.
May also saw the commencement of Break Out, a series of virtual readings and conversations among world-renowned poets and translators. Organized by International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong, the series has an emphasis on expressions of global trauma and poetry’s power to connect and heal, responding to the crisis of our times. So far, seven online poetry readings are scheduled between May and September. In particular, Syrian poet Adonis and his Chinese translator Xue Qingguo, also a scholar, did a live-streamed discussion several weeks ago, which can be revisited here. Other featured poets include Shuntaro Tanikawa and Tian Yuan—whose dialogue has also been uploaded online—as well as Jan Wagner (Germany), Bejan Matur (Turkey), Nikola Madzirov (North Macedonia), Forrest Gander (USA), Bei Dao (China), Mang Ke (China), and Zhou Yunpeng (China).
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This week on the Asymptote blog: