Every time you purchase a book, we donate a book to someone in need.“Meet the man crowd-funding Gaza’s first English library”
Books can help to connect Palestinians in the besieged territory to the rest of the world, says Mosab Abu Toha.
Beit Lahia, Gaza – Escaping the confines of the besieged Gaza Strip, often described as an “open-air prison”, is a nearly impossible dream for many of its two million residents.
But 24-year-old Mosab Abu Toha has found a way to free himself – through books.
“Freedom is a state of mind. [With books], you’re liberating yourself by living in an imaginary world where there are no boundaries … If I choose to be free, I can be free through my writing, through speaking,” Abu Toha told Al Jazeera.
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| ‘Language is what makes us all human,’ Abu Toha says [Ezz Zanoun/Al Jazeera] |
As an English literature graduate, he has a thirst for books that has always been difficult to quench in Gaza, where new English books are hard to find. PDF files are not a great alternative, as Gaza suffers from frequent, lengthy power cuts.
“Whenever I go to a bookshop or library, I rarely see English books, especially books by Edward Said, Noam Chomsky – these intellectuals who write in English,” Abu Toha said, noting that translations into Arabic take about three years.
But having relied on his friends from abroad to send him books over the years, he has amassed a substantial collection on the shelves of his third-floor apartment in Beit Lahia.
