‘An act of restoration and celebration. Heba’s light-footed, lyrical writing dazzles with its depth.’ — Rebecca Tamás, author of Strangers

Join Hajar Press and writer Heba Hayek to mark the publication of Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies, a collection of tender yet brutal vignettes on a girlhood in Gaza, Palestine.

With brilliance and grace, Hayek’s vignettes explore the methods of survival nurtured by Palestinian women in the face of colonial occupation and patriarchy—the power of community care, and of loving what’s not meant to be loved. Her reflections reveal the intimate magnificence and quiet devastation of everyday life: a family drive on the shore, waxing for the first time with aunties, or peeling figs while waiting at a checkpoint.

Heba Hayek is a London-based writer born and raised in Gaza, Palestine. She completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Miami University, Ohio, and is studying for an MA in Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London. She has been involved in several activist movements, including for BDS, prison abolition and demilitarisation. Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies is her first book.