'Hope so heavy to carry': Al-Shaer on harrowing plight, emotional toll, struggle to survive in Gaza

Eve Irvine is pleased to welcome Palestinian writer and poet Mahmoud Al-Shaer, “Am I real, or just a number in this war?” In I Am Still Alive: Dispatches from Gaza, Palestinian writer Mahmoud Al-Shaer explores how war transforms memory, childhood and the meaning of existence. Recounting his family's displacement, his daughter's understanding of a world reduced to tents, and his evacuation from Gaza, he reflects on writing as an act of resistance against erasure. His testimony reveals how the struggle for survival extends beyond physical destruction to the preservation of identity, collective memory and the possibility of a normal life.