Paperback
978-1-77212-492-7Size: 5½" x 8½"
Pages: 236
epub
978-1-77212-516-0Pages: 152
Kindle
978-1-77212-517-7Pages: 152
Pages: 152
A White Lie
Women’s Voices from Gaza Series
By Madeeha Hafez Albatta
Edited by Barbara Bill and Ghada Ageel
Palestinian refugees in Gaza have lived in camps for five generations, experiencing hardship and uncertainty. In the absence of official histories, oral narratives handed down from generation to generation bear witness to life in Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba—the catastrophe of dispossession. These narratives maintain traditions, keep alive names of destroyed villages, and record stories of the fight for dignity and freedom. The Women’s Voices from Gaza Series honours women’s unique and underrepresented perspectives on the social, material, and political realities of Palestinian life. In A White Lie, the first volume in this series, Madeeha Hafez Albatta chronicles her life in Gaza and beyond. Among her remarkable achievements was establishing some of the first schools for refugee children in Gaza.
Book details
Publication date: October 2020Features: 3 maps, 6 B&W photographs, foreword, introduction, chronology, notes, glossary, bibliography
Series: Women’s Voices from Gaza Series
Keywords: historiography, oral history, non-fiction, collective memories, culture, exile, traditional historical narrative, history from below, gender, generational experience, Middle East peace process, human rights, subaltern, people’s voices, margin, voiceless, hidden lives, identities, peripheral, Israel
Subject(s): BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women, Social Sciences, Social Sciences / Activism & Social Movements, History, History / Oral History, Gender & Sexuality, Gender & Sexuality / Women’s Studies, Area Studies, Area Studies / Palestinian Studies, Area Studies, Area Studies / Middle Eastern Studies, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Middle Eastern, historiography, oral history, non-fiction, collective memories, culture, exile, traditional historical narrative, history from below, gender, generational experience, Middle East peace process, human rights, subaltern, people’s voices, margin, voiceless, hidden lives, identities, peripheral, Israel, Oral History / Palestine / Women’s Studies, Biography, Gender studies: women & girls, Memoirs, Anthologies: general, Women's Studies, Black Authors and Authors of Colour, Humanities
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Book details
Publication date: October 2020Features: 3 maps, 6 B&W photographs, foreword, introduction, chronology, notes, glossary, bibliography
Series: Women’s Voices from Gaza Series
Keywords: historiography, oral history, non-fiction, collective memories, culture, exile, traditional historical narrative, history from below, gender, generational experience, Middle East peace process, human rights, subaltern, people’s voices, margin, voiceless, hidden lives, identities, peripheral, Israel
Subject(s): BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women, Social Sciences, Social Sciences / Activism & Social Movements, History, History / Oral History, Gender & Sexuality, Gender & Sexuality / Women’s Studies, Area Studies, Area Studies / Palestinian Studies, Area Studies, Area Studies / Middle Eastern Studies, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Middle Eastern, historiography, oral history, non-fiction, collective memories, culture, exile, traditional historical narrative, history from below, gender, generational experience, Middle East peace process, human rights, subaltern, people’s voices, margin, voiceless, hidden lives, identities, peripheral, Israel, Oral History / Palestine / Women’s Studies, Biography, Gender studies: women & girls, Memoirs, Anthologies: general, Women's Studies, Black Authors and Authors of Colour, Humanities
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
"[A White Lie] should urge academics to consider whose voices they include and how they include them when writing about and theorising Palestine. It demonstrates the power of centring female voices and detailed histories to understand intersections between temporality, place, and gender and the material, social, and political realities of Palestinian life." Olivia Mason, Gender, Place & Culture [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1971899]
"In A White Lie, Madeeha Hafez Albatta recounts her life as a teacher, mother and activist in Gaza... By preserving Albatta’s extraordinary life, this book makes a significant contribution to Palestinian history and politics." [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/white-lie-womens-voices/]
“A White Lie is the first in a series of oral histories from a woman’s perspective living through events – modern history – occurring in Gaza and regionally. As history is usually written by old white men at the end of a certain epoch or episode in history, people’s voices, women’s voices in particular, are seldom if ever heard.” Jim Miles, Palestine Chronicles, August 4, 2023 [Full article at https://www.palestinechronicle.com/womens-voices-from-gaza-a-white-lie-book-review/]
"What an extraordinary project! We don't hear enough from Gaza. Through the oral histories of Palestinian women who have lived, witnessed, and built lives and futures for their families and communities—in the face of devastating force and continuing injustices—we learn Palestinian History through the intimate daily ways individuals have lived and made it."
"Gaza City is one of the most ancient cultural centres on the Mediterranean, and its people have long been a backbone of the Palestinian national movement. How Gazan women describe their lives under continual siege and military attack reveals their capacity for bearing hardship and undertaking initiatives in the public sphere. Ghada Ageel, a Gazan, and Barbara Bill have ably used oral history to bring readers the lived reality of women of different backgrounds, ages, and occupations."
Preface ix
Foreword xv
Acknowledgements xxiii
Introduction xxv
A White Lie
1 / Childhood Days 3
2 / School Days 23
3 / Marriage 39
4 / Massacre 51
5 / Occupation 65
6 / Black September 87
7 / 1973 War 103
8 / Waiting for the Curtain to Rise 111
Chronology of Events in Palestine 129
Notes 149
Glossary 167
Bibliography 171
"[A White Lie] should urge academics to consider whose voices they include and how they include them when writing about and theorising Palestine. It demonstrates the power of centring female voices and detailed histories to understand intersections between temporality, place, and gender and the material, social, and political realities of Palestinian life." Olivia Mason, Gender, Place & Culture [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1971899]
"In A White Lie, Madeeha Hafez Albatta recounts her life as a teacher, mother and activist in Gaza... By preserving Albatta’s extraordinary life, this book makes a significant contribution to Palestinian history and politics." [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/white-lie-womens-voices/]
“A White Lie is the first in a series of oral histories from a woman’s perspective living through events – modern history – occurring in Gaza and regionally. As history is usually written by old white men at the end of a certain epoch or episode in history, people’s voices, women’s voices in particular, are seldom if ever heard.” Jim Miles, Palestine Chronicles, August 4, 2023 [Full article at https://www.palestinechronicle.com/womens-voices-from-gaza-a-white-lie-book-review/]
"What an extraordinary project! We don't hear enough from Gaza. Through the oral histories of Palestinian women who have lived, witnessed, and built lives and futures for their families and communities—in the face of devastating force and continuing injustices—we learn Palestinian History through the intimate daily ways individuals have lived and made it."
"Gaza City is one of the most ancient cultural centres on the Mediterranean, and its people have long been a backbone of the Palestinian national movement. How Gazan women describe their lives under continual siege and military attack reveals their capacity for bearing hardship and undertaking initiatives in the public sphere. Ghada Ageel, a Gazan, and Barbara Bill have ably used oral history to bring readers the lived reality of women of different backgrounds, ages, and occupations."
Preface ix
Foreword xv
Acknowledgements xxiii
Introduction xxv
A White Lie
1 / Childhood Days 3
2 / School Days 23
3 / Marriage 39
4 / Massacre 51
5 / Occupation 65
6 / Black September 87
7 / 1973 War 103
8 / Waiting for the Curtain to Rise 111
Chronology of Events in Palestine 129
Notes 149
Glossary 167
Bibliography 171
