On the Brink of a Pit

About this book

Asmaa Ashraf Ismail brings private grief into conversation with collective catastrophe. The work begins with her father's illness and sudden death, a loss intensified by hospital isolation and a final farewell denied. That personal wound then meets the larger anguish of Gaza under bombardment and siege. Across five emotionally structured sections, poetry and lyrical prose portray sheltering children, grieving men, enduring mothers, queues for aid, and urgent questions about justice, faith, freedom, and steadfastness. On the Brink of a Pit is both a witness to suffering and a document of hope written from the author's perspective.