By Yaeesh Collins|
Palestinian-American author, poet, and activist Susan Abulhawa.
Image: Roy VanDerVegt
Next month, the global literary, academic, and activist communities turn their collective attention to Johannesburg, as acclaimed Palestinian American novelist, scientist, poet, and human rights advocate Susan Abulhawa arrives for a major speaking tour.
Thirteen years after her 2013 festival appearance, Abulhawa returns to a South African audience that intimately understands state terror.
Official poster for the 4th Annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg, featuring key speaker Susan Abulhawa.
Image: UJ Faculty of Humanities (Facebook)
Abulhawa’s visit is pronounced by her delivery of the Fourth Annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg on August 26.
Invited by the Faculty of Humanities and the South African Research Chair Initiative in Community, Adult and Worker Education, Abulhawa will present an address titled Merchants of Death, Civilisational Refusal, Indigenous Ethos, Armed Resistance, and Storytelling.
The lecture serves as a memorial to Shireen Abu Akleh, the veteran Al Jazeera journalist killed by an Israeli sniper in Jenin in 2022. It will simultaneously function as a direct critique of the global political architecture that facilitates ongoing atrocities in Gaza.
Abulhawa frames the Palestinian struggle as a civilisational refusal to submit to a hegemonic settler-colonial project by invoking the merchants of death; she directly connects the physical destruction of Palestinian bodies to the balance sheets of multinational defence contractors.
In early 2024, Abulhawa crossed into Gaza twice during the heaviest bombardments in modern history, using her scientific and medical credentials to bypass blockades.
Prominent Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, commemorated annually at the University of Johannesburg following her death in Jenin in 2022.
Image: AFP
Collaborating with the Culture and Free Thought Association, Abulhawa held writing workshops for 18 young Palestinians displaced into overcrowded tent encampments. Together, they used the communal act of writing as a tool for survival.
These workshops produced the newly released 2026 anthology Every Moment Is a Life: Gaza in the Time of Genocide, which she jointly edited with Huzama Habayeb.
The anthology features a bilingual format. It preserves the original Arabic texts alongside English translations, so the English language does not sanitise the voices. It forces the reader to confront human realities amidst live broadcast ethnic cleansing.
Contributors document their transitions from comfort to severe deprivation. Samya recounts a tender interaction with an old man mending shoes in the rubble, demonstrating sumud, or steadfastness, by maintaining societal dignity.
Saja Laham describes hiding her beloved books in a closet, attempting to preserve cultural heritage against scholasticide (the systematic destruction of educational and cultural heritage).
Ghassan Salam explores the psychological trauma of transient hope through the haunting memory of a rescued baby who briefly became his son before succumbing to violence.
Fatima highlights the extreme risks people take for basic human dignity, running into a danger zone buzzing with military drones just to retrieve clothing.
Critics note that writing and meticulously revising these stories over broken internet connections under falling bombs constitutes an act of supreme resistance. It functions as breath held against erasure.
Book cover of Every Moment Is a Life: Gaza in the Time of Genocide, an anthology of Palestinian writers compiled by Susan Abulhawa.
Image: GoodReads
Following her second visit to Gaza, Abulhawa catalysed a profound critique of how the global community polices Palestinian speech. She encapsulates the dilemma with a piercing observation, noting that Palestinians are expected to witness their own genocide and then monitor their language to avoid offending the perpetrators. This reflects her ongoing battles with Western media.
When The Guardian commissioned her to write an opinion column, senior editors demanded she remove the word holocaust to describe the destruction of the Palestinian people.
Abulhawa refused the editorial condition. She argued that the magnitude and sadism inflicted upon Gaza made it the only lexicological choice capable of capturing the reality of the extermination campaign.
The rejected essay was later published by Novara Media under the title I Went to Gaza. What I saw was a Holocaust.
Major works written and compiled by Susan Abulhawa, including The Blue Between Sky and Water, Every Moment Is a Life, and Mornings in Jenin.
Image: Facebook
To grasp the magnitude of the upcoming visit, simply trace the trajectory of her literary career, which acts as a repository of the collective memories of the Palestinian diaspora, as outlined in the following major works:
Mornings in Jenin (2010): A multi-generational saga exploring the displacement of a Palestinian family following the 1948 Nakba.
The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015): A narrative centred on a family forced from their village to Gaza, blending folklore with the harsh realities of occupation.
Against the Loveless World (2020): A powerful examination of political imprisonment and the resilience of the human spirit.
Abulhawa refuses to let her words live only on paper; her literary achievements are linked to a lifetime of material activism.
In 2001, she founded Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO dedicated to building safe spaces for children in refugee camps.
This unapologetic advocacy has made her a target of the Israeli state. She faced high-profile deportations in 2015 and 2018, with the latter occurring while she was en route to a literature festival, representing a physical manifestation of the censorship she combats in her work.
Children participating in a cultural heritage and expression workshop organized by the Culture and Free Thought Association in partnership with Playgrounds for Palestine.
Image: Playgrounds for Palestine Archives
The upcoming August tour of South Africa represents a critical juncture in the global discourse on human rights, literature, and decolonial resistance. Through her extensive body of work, Susan Abulhawa has spent decades constructing a repository of Palestinian memory.
Publishing Every Moment Is a Life marks a profound shift in her role as a cultural worker. It proves that storytelling functions as an act of ontological survival.
As the merchants of death continue their trade, the voices emanating from the rubble of Gaza insist that breath, memory and their narratives will ultimately outlast the bombs.
The 4th Annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture takes place on August 26, 2026, at the University of Johannesburg. Attendance is free, but space is limited.
Interested attendees can reserve their spot by completing the Official Event RSVP Form.
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