The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary

by Atef Abu Saif

Overview

An ordinary Gazan’s “devastating contemporary war journal” that chronicles his fear, sadness, and boredom during Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza (Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient)

The Drone Eats with Me is an unforgettable rendering of everyday civilian life shattered by the realities of twenty-first-century warfare. Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza lasted 51 days, killed 2,145 Palestinians (578 of them children), injured over 11,000 people, and demolished more than 17,000 homes.

Atef Abu Saif, a young father and novelist, puts an indelibly human face on these statistics, providing a rare window into the texture of a community and the realities of a conflict that is too often obscured by politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807049105
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	07/05/2016
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	162,867
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Atef Abu Saif was born in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip in 1973. He is the author of five novels, including A Suspended Life, which was shortlisted for the 2015 International Prize for Arab Fiction. He lives with his family in Gaza.

Editorial Reviews

This stunning memoir reads more like poetry than prose.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“An indelibly memorable book...the saddest thing about The Drone Eats with Me is how long it’s likely to remain timely.”
—The Christian Science Monitor

“Saif sets politics aside in order to focus on both the human tragedy that continues to play out there and the power of hope. An important addition to Middle Eastern literature.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

“‘Without a TV, we stand by the window and watch Gaza, together. Fields of darkness spread out in all directions. The ghost of a city. The only lights are those of the drones and F16s hovering above it all.’ The Drone Eats with Me is a devastating contemporary war journal. This is what war is like in the twenty-first century—the voice of a civilian in the onslaught of drone warfare, a voice we have never heard before.”
—Michael Ondaatje, author of Divisadero

“In this luminous account of Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, Atef Abu Saif creates a literary equivalent to Goya’s Disasters of War. The Drone Eats with Me deserves to become a modern classic of war literature. But for all the surrealist absurdity of the horrors Abu Saif chronicles, the book pulses throughout with the sublime, mundane, and ferocious love for life.”
—Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood

"Atef Abu Saif’s journal of the incessant bombing of the Gaza Strip during the summer of 2014 presents a voice we usually do not hear. Saif gives names and faces to the anonymous people presented in the daily news. His personal account, presented clearly and passionately, is testimony that must be heard.”
—Mary Fran Buckley, Eight Cousins (Falmouth, MA)

“Written with the unapologetic immediacy of a journalist and father, The Drone Eats With Me is an essential guide to life in modern Gaza. Atef Abu Saif’s chronicle of living in the age of drone warfare will stir the reader’s heart.”
—Erin Goss, Left Bank Books (St. Louis, MO)

“I hope this book is read with an open heart and mind by Americans of all religions and from all regions, and across the world, too. It’s not an easy read, but I feel better and more informed having read it...Saif’s memoir about a family attempting normalcy during modern-day wartime takes you into a world we read plenty of headlines about but may not understand when it comes to day-to-day life.”
—Sue Roegge, Chapter2Books (Hudson, WI)

“It’s difficult to read, the way many war memoirs are, but it feels important to witness what this man experienced. Thoughtful and beautifully written, this book will leave you with a lot to think about.”
—Ingrid Goatson, Boulder Book Store (Boulder, CO)

From the Publisher

2016-04-18
A searing memoir of daily life in Gaza from July 6 to Aug. 26, 2014, when the territory was under constant bombardment by Israel.Palestinian political scientist, columnist, and novelist Abu Saif (A Suspended Life, 2014, etc.), who was born in 1973 in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, describes moment to moment the experience of living under fire. While shells fly in from ships at sea and rockets from tanks on the ground, it is the drones overhead that fill the author with dread. As he writes while breaking the fast during Ramadan, "the drone eats with me." Abu Saif's diary shows the horror in detail: the sounds, the smells, the sights. He is a husband and father intent on keeping his family safe, though he knows he cannot. Anyone looking for an analysis of the political situation, a discussion of who started the conflict and why, will not find it here. What the author offers instead is a vivid picture of living surrounded by death and destruction, going to sleep hoping you will awake, fearing for the safety of your loved ones, seeing the fear in your children's eyes, and knowing that the next bomb could be the one that destroys them all. The diary has been augmented after the fact to provide additional information: when a day's entry gives the numbers of Palestinians killed, footnotes often give the names of the individuals; maps of Gaza highlight areas under attack, providing a guide to readers unfamiliar with the geography of the territory; and end-of-book notes offer further background. Portions of this diary appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and Slate, and the book was previously published in England last year. Readers able to put aside the larger picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find here a very human, up-close, and personal picture of war.

Kirkus Reviews