A Month By The Sea: Encounters in Gaza

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Over the summer of 2011, Dervla Murphy spent a month in the Gaza Strip. She developed anacute eye for the way in which isolation has shaped this society, meeting liberals and Islamists,Hamas and Fatah supporters, rich and poor. Through reported conversations she creates avivid picture of life in this coastal fragment of self-governing Palestine. Bombed and cut-offfrom normal contact with the rest of the world, life in Gaza is beset with structural, medicaland mental health problems, yet it is also bursting with political engagement and underwrittenby an intense enjoyment of family life.

During her month by the sea, Dervla developsan acute eye for the way in which isolation hasshaped this society. Time and again she meetsmen who have returned to the Strip as an act ofpresence. Yet the mosque is often their only dailyactivity, as difficulties obtaining supplies meanfew opportunities for creative work. This actsas a recruiting sergeant for the Islamist Qassambrigades and a pressure cooker for the creation ofdomestic tyrants. In this situation, Dervla becomesa shameless supporter of women's rights actingas agony aunt and feminist mentor by turn.

"You could say I'm reluctantly retired from writing books": travel writer Dervla Murphy- The Guardian