Esraa Albanna is a student of English literature living in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.
An artist and a writer, she says “Words are my way of expressing art, which exists to remind you of what you can learn about different peoples and what you can tell them about yourself.”
She adds, “I fully realize that reading what other people have thought can help us form our own judgments about life.”
Current as of October 2025
Art has become a means of survival, and also a way to document war, transforming living testimonies into vivid records for posterity.
Waiting for a return to life’s colors, I was paralyzed by inaction until I began drawing in black and white.
I imagine our house under the wing of a dragon with all its warmth / Even if all that surrounds us is a tent.
Israel’s war on Gaza interrupted my university studies; it prevented my brother from achieving his high school diploma.
Her ‘laboratory of joy’ unites our family despite genocide and displacement.
