we are not numbers

emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights

Nada Hammad

    Nada, 23, describes herself as a “dreamer, feminist, professional bookworm and fiction lover – a Harry Potter fan until the day I die.” (She says she is still waiting for her Hogwarts letter. “It just got lost in the mail. Or something.”) As Nayyra Waheed said, Nada is a "brutally soft woman." She is studied English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and is currently an English middle-school teacher. She particularly likes writing short stories—“unfinished short stories.” Nada would like to earn a second degree in sociology and says her “dream job” would be to own her own bookshop/coffee shop, or to start her own publishing company to support young Palestinian writers.

    my work

    I love the good, the bad, the heartbreaking and everything in between because I don't think I would be the person I am today if I hadn't lived in Gaza.
    I don't know who you are. You and I have not met, and now never will.
    Everywhere you turn your head, you see splashes of color. Vivid, bright colors that aren't meant to mask the gray, but rather share its space.