Synopsis
A memoir that bears witness to the horror of genocide in Gaza.
At dawn on October 13, 2023, a week after the Hamas attack on Israel and the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian journalist Sami al-Ajrami locks the door of his home in Jabalia, where he has lived all his life. According to the instructions of the Israeli army, he and his family are evacuating to the south.
For the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Al-Ajrami begins a diary in which he reports on the escalating conflict and the journey to southern Gaza. He writes about the constant search for a safe shelter, for food and warmth, but also about the sadness of leaving everything behind and the constant fear of the bombings. These daily reports form the basis for this book.
He writes without embellishment, only what he sees and hears. Al-Ajrami describes the days, the waiting, the bombs, the hunger and thirst, the deaths. He describes the little things people do to keep each other going: the jokes they make, the stories they tell each other. What he does to distract children during bombings: he solves a Rubik's cube, while the children look on as if hypnotized.
The Keys to the House is a chronicle of an immense tragedy, of daily life in the bomb-ravaged Gaza Strip, but also an intimate portrait of a family experiencing the drama of war firsthand.
This is the human story behind the cold numbers from Gaza. The story of a father who cannot protect his daughters, of a son who cannot bury his father properly and has to leave his mother behind. But this is also monumental journalism: factual, informative, and detailed. As if it wants to say: “This is how it is, this has happened, this is happening now. It's on paper, you just have to read it.”
About the Author
Sami al-Ajrami is a Palestinian journalist born in 1967 in Jabalia, the largest refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. He works as a freelance journalist and has been reporting for several international newspapers for years. He writes for the news agency Ansa and la Repubblica. He currently lives in Egypt.
Jim Hicks is the former executive editor of the Massachusetts Review and former director of the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. At UMass, he was nominated by his students three times for the University’s Distinguished Graduate Mentor award. His most recent translation is Federica Marzi’s My Home Somewhere Else (Sandorf Passage). Other translations include short pieces by François-Marie Banier, Italo Calvino, Ananda Devi, Violaine Huisman, Juan José Saer, Izet Sarajlić, and longer works by Erri De Luca. His Lessons from Sarajevo: A War Stories Primer was published by the University of Massachusetts Press.
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