Description
Palestinian refugees in Gaza have lived in camps for five generations, experiencing hardship and uncertainty. In the absence of official histories, oral narratives handed down from generation to generation bear witness to life in Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba—the catastrophe of dispossession. These narratives maintain traditions, keep alive names of destroyed villages, and record stories of the fight for dignity and freedom. The Women’s Voices from Gaza Series honours women’s unique and underrepresented perspectives on the social, material, and political realities of Palestinian life. In A White Lie, the first volume in this series, Madeeha Hafez Albatta chronicles her life in Gaza and beyond. Among her remarkable achievements was establishing some of the first schools for refugee children in Gaza. Foreword by Salman Abu Sitta.
Reviews
"[A White Lie] should urge academics to consider whose voices they include and how they include them when writing about and theorising Palestine. It demonstrates the power of centring female voices and detailed histories to understand intersections between temporality, place, and gender and the material, social, and political realities of Palestinian life." Olivia Mason, Gender, Place & Culture [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1971899]
"In A White Lie, Madeeha Hafez Albatta recounts her life as a teacher, mother and activist in Gaza... By preserving Albatta’s extraordinary life, this book makes a significant contribution to Palestinian history and politics." [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/white-lie-womens-voices/]
- Nancy Janovicek, Alberta Reviews, 05/01/2021
“A White Lie is the first in a series of oral histories from a woman’s perspective living through events – modern history – occurring in Gaza and regionally. As history is usually written by old white men at the end of a certain epoch or episode in history, people’s voices, women’s voices in particular, are seldom if ever heard.” Jim Miles, Palestine Chronicles, August 4, 2023 [Full article at https://www.palestinechronicle.com/womens-voices-from-gaza-a-white-lie-book-review/]