At first, the task seemed clear. I had set off to resurrect a part of Gaza’s history that is little known to the rest of the world through weaving the history of 100 years into own my family’s story. My father was my research subject, and my path into this past wonderous world; A world of holy fires and sufi festivals, of communal ovens and water wells, of neighbourhoods and districts with mosques and churches. A world of Nakba, massacres and majnoons in the sky dropping bombs on civilians beneath. The narrative swung between love and grief, hope and despair, misery and joy and all the range and complexities of human relations and emotions.  The stories were mostly based in truth, some fictionized, and all held up by threads of magic realism, humour, love and poetry. 

Little did I know that the year my book is published is the year most of Gaza is erased and the year my father passes away. The magnitude of this compiled loss is indescribable. Its impact acute. Now for me, Cactus Pear for My Beloved is more than a book or a memoire. It is an urgent refuge for my soul. It is a conduit to a place I belong to and a father I love. Within its pages, it keeps them both intact, holds them safe and counters their erasure.