If there’s one new book you read this year, it should be The Stars Shine Brighter by Rami Abou Jamous. Released last month, it is the Palestinian journalist’s first-person account of life in Gaza during the first two years of the genocide. It’s a short, concise read that is, frequently, devastating. For those of us reading in the U.S., it’s also the rare glimpse inside Gaza that’s uninterrupted by the noise of political spin, propaganda bots, racist assholes and everything else that makes so many people shy away from even mentioning Palestine.
Jamous is an award-winning war correspondent who has reported from Gaza for multiple French outlets over the past few years. (You can read his more recent columns in Orient XXI) In The Stars Shine Brighter, he documents both what is happening in the communities surrounding him and how he tries to keep his own family safe.
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