Ep 312 - Sumud: Echoes of Palestine with Malu Halasa & Jordan Elgrably

“It's a wound. Palestine is a wound that doesn't go away because it's ignored.” 

Where there is oppression, there is resistance. Even when it seems invisible to outsiders, it can always be found in the art and culture of the oppressed. 

Malu Halasa and Jordan Elgrably, of the Markaz Review, talk to Steve about Sumud: A New Palestinian Reader, an anthology of essays, poetry, fiction, memoirs, and art. 

Sumud is translated to mean ‘steadfastness’ or ‘standing fast.’ Recounting the work of author and human rights lawyer Raja Sheheda, Malu adds: 

“Sumud is practiced by every man, woman and child in Palestine, struggling on his or her own to learn to cope with and resist the pressures of living as a member of a conquered people. Sumud is watching your home turned into a prison ... It is developing from an all-encompassing form of life into a form of resistance that unites the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.” 

Malu and Jordan highlight the ongoing violence and erasure faced by Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, where artistic expression becomes a vital form of resistance against dehumanization. The Israelis are intentional in their attempt to erase the art, culture, and memories of Palestine. Like the destruction of hospitals, schools, and arable land, it is intrinsic to the genocide. 

The conversation also touches on the implications of US support for Israel. Gaza has become an international display of arms and weaponized AI, serving the military industrial complex and global perpetrators of the endless war. 

Malu Halasa, Literary Editor at The Markaz Review, is a Jordanian Filipina American writer and editor. Her latest edited anthology is Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (Saqi Books, 2023) has been shortlisted for the 2024 Bread & Roses Prize for Radical Publishing.. Previous co-edited anthologies include: Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (Saqi Books, 2014) among others. She has written for The Guardian, Financial Times and Times Literary Supplement. Her debut novel, Mother of All Pigs (Unnamed Press, 2017), was described as: “a microcosmic portrait of … a patriarchal order in slow-motion decline” by the New York Times. Halasa has been writing about Palestine for the past thirty years. 

Jordan Elgrably is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and translator, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020), and producer of the stand-up comedy show “The Sultans of Satire” (2005–2017) and hundreds of other public programs. Most recently he is the editor of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights 2024). He is based in Montpellier, France and California.