‘There’s a taut urgency throughout… joy and humour too… These poems testify to the resilience of the artists, and the role that poetry still has to give voice and bear witness in times of crisis’ Rishi Dastidar, Guardian

A deeply moving poetry anthology exploring loss and survival by Palestinian writers living in Gaza and the West Bank

You Must Live brings together some of the most remarkable poets living and writing in Palestine today, from renowned international prize winners to talented emerging voices.

Composed over the past few years and gathered under desperate conditions, these poems, which appear in the original Arabic alongside English translations, are haunted by the long spectre of occupation, transforming laments for lost family, friends and places into a new vision of home. This is a poetry of witness and profound lyric imagination, attuned to the hidden beauty of the natural landscape, the music of sparrows under crowded skies, the electricity of complex desire, daring to conceive a dazzling future beyond dispossession and military siege.

You Must Live is the latest entry into the rich tradition of Palestinian poetry, negotiating the interplay between aesthetics and politics, the individual and the collective, to provide a glimpse into the full interiority of Palestinian life.

‘A light beam of a collection in our dark hours…This is a landmark work, a center from which myriad new ways of thinking and being will flourish’ Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky With Exit Wounds