Upcoming book: Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine

Palestinian cartoonist, author, activist and former prisoner Mohammad Sabaaneh will soon release the graphic novel Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine, which was chosen as one of this week’s book of the week by Publishers Weekly.

Palestinian cartoonist, author, activist and former prisoner Mohammad Sabaaneh will soon release the graphic novel Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine, which was chosen as one of this week’s book of the week by Publishers Weekly.

In 2013 Israeli authorities detained Sabaaneh on the grounds of being linked to a terrorist group. He was held in Israeli prison for five months including two weeks of solitary confinement before being acquitted and released.

The experience profoundly changed Sabaaneh and how he depicts Palestinian prisoners in his cartoons.

Recently, over 250 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel went on a hunger strike to protest their relocation to isolated cells. Led by the militant Islamic Jihad group, this hunger strike comes amid heightened tensions in Israeli confinement following the escape and subsequent recapture of six prisoners from a high-security prison last month. Israel is currently holding more than 4,600 Palestinians some of whom are teenagers who simply took part in demonstrations.

Power Born of Dreams book cover, by Mohammad Sabaaneh

In response to this news, Sabanneh has been using the number 6 (representing the 6 prisoners who escaped) with the shape of Palestine/Israel cut out of it.

Sabaaneh says that his intention is to use graffiti to challenge the occupation and to make the voices of the Palestinian people heard.

Mohammad Sabaaneh did not draw the pages of Power Born of Dreams (Street Noise Books; November 9, 2021), but instead used linocut printing.

“I was unable to carve my name onto the walls of my prison cell,” he wrote in his forthcoming book’s preface. “I’ve long wondered how prisoners are able to carve their names into those rough prison walls. For this reason I’ve decided to carve their stories and share them with the world.”

Watch Sabaaneh’s video on his graphic novel in this video. Click this link to view video or use the widget below:

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Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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