The last blows of drills, hammers and brooms were given before the inauguration. Soon the iron curtain will rise again. And the public will be able to discover a splendid building, all in marble and black metal with shelves in blond or brown wood. “This is the largest bookstore in Palestine… Not just in Gaza but in all of Palestine! It’s three times bigger than the one that was bombed“, proudly states Mohamad Samir Mansour, the owner’s son.
He threw himself headlong into the adventure after the war last May: “Yes, it’s difficult, it’s heavy when you think about it… It happened and it passed, thank God. Despite the destruction, we never stopped. Since July 2021, we have published almost 70 new books: novels, essays, poetry, management manuals and many more!”
Nida Haoucha, lecturer at the nearby university was impatiently awaiting the reopening. Last week, she even came too early, in too much of a hurry to find a business in line with her ideals of life: “I do my best to make my children read printed books. When we were young, we used to read books but today technology has affected new generations. So at home, I created a library space for my children, even if they can find everything they want on the internet.”
For Gazans, this bookstore is indeed much more than a simple book store: a few tens of meters from the old destroyed bookstore, where only a crater remains, the new place is seen as a space of relaxation and oblivion, three floors of calm in this noisy and polluted enclave.
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“The destruction of our bookstore did not lead us to failure or despair. We continued our adventure and our work to continue cultivating and awakening the people of Gaza.says Mohamad Samir Mansour. We have cultivated them by publishing books from different countries, from different publishers around the world. Reading strengthens our thought and our reason.”
The best-selling books are Palestinian and American novels, self-help books, children’s books and the Quran. A collection of testimonies from Holocaust survivors also figures prominently in this decidedly special place.