Our guiding theme for 2027 will be memory. This could mean what we remember, what we forget, what we preserve and what changes with time. Memory might be personal or collective, inherited or imagined. Contributors might consider childhood memories, family histories, memories attached to food, music, sound, and smell, or the spaces that hold memories. Perhaps it means archives and forms of preservation, digital memory and nostalgia. Or it could mean forgetting and misremembering, and the ways in which memories are retold and reshaped over time. However they wish and to
approach their piece in whatever form feels most appropriate —whether prose, poetry, essay. In this Edition, illustrated by Palestinian artist Sama Emad, four female authors from Gaza; Haya Abu Shammala, Nour al Saqqa, Hanan Habashi and Heba Hayek, separately explore the theme of Memory. They each re-visit the years before the Genocide –when being naughty meant only a hidden poster of Thierry Henry, a ‘borrowed’ family car, laziness or grumpiness. Now such innocence been destroyed, along with their houses and so many of their friends and family members. They all want to remember every detail –life before, life during, life after –and yet, on occasion, forget.
