National Book Award winner calls for end of 'US-funded Gaza genocide'

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and Shifa Saltagi Safadi use acceptance speeches to condemn lack of action over ongoing war

Palestinian-American Lena Khalaf Tuffaha said 'any administration we pay for, should stop funding and arming a genocide in Gaza'. AP

Palestinian-American poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha wished a “good morning to beloved Gaza” at the start of her acceptance speech for winning a National Book Award.

Khalaf Tuffaha – who is of Palestinian, Jordanian and Syrian descent – also marked that it was “the 411th day of the genocide".

Her winning collection, Something About Living, delves into Palestine's history and violence, touching on themes such as diaspora and colonialism while focusing on the hope people hold on to for survival.

“We are now living in the second November of the American-funded genocide in Palestine,” she said. “Our service is needed as writers, our service is needed as human beings in every room, in every space, especially where there is something to risk or there is an opportunity to be lost, or that courage will really cost you – that’s what’s most needed.”

Khalaf Tuffaha went on to say that it was her father Mosa Khalaf, born in Jerusalem in 1938, who told her at the age of five of his homeland that he couldn’t live in anymore. She added that it was this story that had driven and motivated her.

“I’m proud to stand here today and to accept this honour as a Palestinian-American on behalf of all the deeply beautiful Palestinians this world has lost and in honour of all those miraculous ones who endure, waiting for us, waiting for us to wake up,” she said.

Khalaf Tuffaha also made a point that everyone should feel motivated and angry enough to speak up and demand an end to what is happening in Gaza.

She added: “I want us to feel and be uncomfortable and be disoriented and be angry and get up and demand that any administration, no matter what letter it has at the end of its name … that any administration that we pay for, should stop funding and arming a genocide in Gaza.”

Meanwhile, Syrian-American author Shifa Saltagi Safadi, whose book Kareem Between won the young people's literature category, also spoke up about Palestine during her acceptance speech.

She began by speaking about her experience of growing up as a Muslim in America and thanking Muslim authors who inspired her to write.

“I would never have believed I could do it if I had not read the words of the people before me who showed me what it looks like,” she said. “So often I saw books where Muslims were the villains, and I’m glad I finally got to write a story where we’re the heroes.”

Her young adult novel Kareem Between is a coming-of-age story, which follows the journey of a seventh-grade Syrian-American boy and his struggles as he makes his way through school. Inspired by the 2017 Muslim ban in the US, Safadi added that despite her novel being about justice and standing up against discrimination and racism, these issues are still sombrely pertinent today.

“Dehumanisation of Arabs and Islamophobia has been rising more than ever in this past year to justify a genocide of the Palestinian people,” she said. “Justice and freedom are for all people. All of our liberations are tied together, from people in Gaza, in Sudan, in Congo, in Syria, in every corner of the world to people here in America and deep within our hearts.”

Safadi ended her acceptance speech by saying: "Be brave and free Palestine.”