Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer was killed in Gaza last week by an Israeli airstrike alongside six family members. TIME has published a collection of transcribed voice notes Alareer sent them last month. In one, he talks about the extreme lack of food and water in Gaza: “I personally lost like five kilos, but I don’t care. I can eat one date for 10 or 15 hours. I’m a young man. But how would you tell a kid they can’t eat, they can’t have what they want, they can’t drink enough? I keep telling my kids, ‘Drink less, eat less.’” At the Electronic Intifada, Asem al-Nabih, a longtime friend of Alareer’s, writes: “We all know about him because he used to speak about Gaza. All of Gaza needs to talk about him. The whole world needs to talk about him.”
Protean magazine has published the seventh installment of its series of Letters from Gaza in partnership with the Institute for Palestine Studies. On November 4, Bushra Khalidi told her brother-in-law that she had seen families fighting over water in Gaza City: “This is serious because, in Palestinian communities, people are known for their generosity and close ties. To see them now fighting over something as basic as water shows just how extremely difficult the situation has become.”
The second issue of Whitney Mallett’s Whitney Review of New Writing is out now, with contributions from McKenzie Wark, Amalia Ulman, Scott Hamrah, Johanna Fateman, and more.
Kathleen Hanna has announced a spring book tour for her upcoming memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, which will be published on May 14th by Ecco Press.
Graywolf Press is seeking submissions for the first issue of Graywolf Lab, their publication of “interdisciplinary conversations and new writing.” Submissions fitting the theme of “time” are open until December 22.
Jennifer Finney Boylan, author and transgender activist, has been elected the new president and chairwoman of PEN America.
This Saturday, n+1 is hosting a holiday market in its Brooklyn office. The day-long event will feature exhibitors selling art, books, magazines, records, and other gifts.