The Stars Shine Brighter: A Father and Son in Gaza - Paperback

by Rami Abou Jamous (Author), Lilya Melkonian (With), Adriana Hunter (Translator)

A Palestinian journalist's extraordinary account of family, survival, and resilience amid the ongoing genocide.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, Rami Abou Jamous is already packed. A respected francophone journalist from Palestine, he quickly grasps what the scale of the Israeli response will be. His emergency bag containing passports, clothes, medical supplies, and cash is never far away--Rami is the father of a two-year-old son, Walid, whom he must protect at all costs, physically and psychologically.

He decides to create a bubble around this little boy that fear, anxiety, and sadness will not be able to penetrate. Explosions are fireworks, drones are birds in full flight, and Walid keeps smiling. Through a series of forced moves from Gaza City to Rafah to Deir al-Balah, from a large, modern apartment to a refugee tent, Rami fights to preserve the safety and dignity of his family and neighbors.

A declaration of a father's love for his son, The Stars Shine Brighter plunges the reader into the everyday reality of one of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time. A unique and priceless testimony about supporting others when everything around you is collapsing.

Author Biography

Rami Abou Jamous is a Palestinian journalist and three-time winner of the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for war correspondents, which pays tribute to those who work in hazardous conditions to provide access to information.

Adriana Hunter studied French and Drama at the University of London. She has translated more than ninety books, including Marc Petitjean's The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris and Hervé Le Tellier's The Anomaly and Eléctrico W, winner of the French-American Foundation's 2013 Translation Prize in Fiction. She lives in Kent, England.