"The doctors took away my legs, but I have strong hands and with them I will continue to make paper kites that carry messages of love and peace to all the children of the world". This is what 13-year-old Yamen Abu Rezziq writes.
He is one of twelve Palestinian children who participated in a short story competition during the spring of 2024. In Gaza, a committee of three worked, amidst bombings and population displacement, to let the children describe their experiences. Some of the short stories have been selected for the book, which is being published in both Swedish and Arabic in the same edition.
"The children's stories are heart-rending, but we must be able to listen", says Lisa Pelling, head of the think tank Arena Idé, which is publishing the book with the publishing house Atlas.
The initiators of the competition are Rezek al-Muza'anan and Swedish-Palestinian Amil Sarsour - father of the book's editors: author and poet Amer Sarsour and communicator Dima Sarsour.
The book will be launched on May 15, the annual date for commemorating al-Nakba, "the catastrophe". This is what the event is called in connection with the outbreak of war in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out and never allowed to return.
