Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd

Rifqa is the debut poetry collection of Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd, following in the footsteps of Ghassan Kanafani’s Palestinian resistance literature. The title honours El-Kurd’s grandmother, who was driven out of Haifa in 1948, and the poems draw on what his family has lost in Sheikh Jarrah, the Jerusalem neighbourhood whose refugee residents live under constant threat of eviction.

Through vivid, defiant verse, El-Kurd argues that the ongoing seizure and destruction of Palestinian homes is not a reminder of the Nakba but a continuation of it. Personal and political in equal measure, it suits readers of contemporary poetry and anyone seeking Palestinian voices on displacement and memory.

• Author: Mohammed El-Kurd
• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Format: Paperback, 100 pages
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9781642595864