Still Lives: A Memoir of Gaza

(Paperback)

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Four years, two wars and one most unlikely social enterprise. Marilyn Garson was an experienced aid professional who created jobs at the edge of war. In 2011, she was invited to move to the Gaza Strip. Friends warned her that nothing worked behind the Gaza blockade. Unable to resist that challenge, Marilyn became the economic director of a large NGO programme, leading an ambitious young Palestinian team. Gaza's business owners, technology graduates, and job-seekers (facing the highest unemployment on earth) overturned Marilyn's understanding of aid and justice. Then she volunteered to join the United Nations emergency team that would remain inside Gaza through the 2014 war. Marilyn witnessed first-hand the impact of Israel's urban assault and massive civilian displacement. The UN was prepared to shelter 35,000 displaced Gazans, but 293,000 arrived. Locked in beneath the bombs, they had nowhere safer to go, and nothing but the United Nations flag and international law to protect them. Neither Marilyn's team nor Gaza itself was the same after fifty days of bombardment. But the team were still determined to launch their social enterprise. On her last day, Marilyn's final task was to tell her Gazan colleagues that she is a Jew.

Reviews

"Eloquent, animated and abounding with humanity. This is an absorbing book about many journeys: from Canada and New Zealand to living in Gaza during its darkest hours; from an innocent abroad to becoming a proficient humanitarian professional; and from daughter and sister to finding her own moral voice in lands of tragedy. Marilyn Garson dissolves the stereotypes about Gaza, as human beings march through its pages. Read it, and you will never think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the same way again." - S. Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied since 1967

Author Bio

As a child, Marilyn Garson was wired to notice power and vulnerability. She studied political science and philosophy, and then set off to apply them. Working with people who support their families at the edge of war, Marilyn has established creative and technology social enterprises. Marilyn lives in Wellington and Hokianga, with a pen in one hand and a ball of wool in the other.