Mahmoud Al-Shaer’s I Am Still Alive: Dispatches from Gaza continues to find its way into public conversations across a range of platforms.
On July 23, K. Verlag publisher Anna-Sophie Springer was invited to DLF Kompressor for a 14-minute interview. For the occasion, the program’s editor Fabian Dietrich commissioned a German translation of an excerpt from the book, beautifully recited by a professional voice actor at the radio station. While the episode’s interviewer then pressed for political condemnations and legal distinctions, Springer emphasized that I Am Still Alive is not a manifesto but a testimony: the intimate record of a young father and artist enduring war, reflecting on survival, parenthood, and daily life amidst atrocity.
As Al-Shaer writes repeatedly, having been born and raised in Gaza, he has faced oppression from many sides throughout his life—and the recent horrors have shattered his dreams. Yet he remains defiant against despair. Even in the face of the appalling violence committed on and since October 7, 2023, the right to use force in self-defense is not unlimited, nor is it exempt from the constraints of international law. From afar, standing in solidarity and demand an end to this suffering—as colleagues, readers, citizens—is the least we can do. At the same time, we must remember that the erosion of international norms has devastating consequences for vulnerable groups and individuals everywhere—and that history shows how quickly those who are abandoned, dispossessed, or even exterminated can shift depending on circumstance and power. The ongoing extreme violence in Gaza continues to destroy not only Palestinian life, but also the lives of the remaining hostages, of families across the region, and the already fragile conditions for any just and lasting peace. Upholding the principles of international law and human dignity is not a matter of partisanship—it is the basis for any livable future.
It is precisely because crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, dehumanization, and suspected genocide must be named and opposed in all circumstances that K. Verlag decided to publish this work and stand firmly behind it—while remaining committed to not instrumentalizing the book for ideological or geopolitical ends. I Am Still Alive is, above all, a literary and human document, and it is in that spirit that we invite it to be read and heard.
In June, I Am Still Alive was also launched at the art book fair Miss Read Berlin, where its co-editor Olga Schubert and the former HKW artistic director Bernd Scherer discussed Al-Shaer’s practice and writing, recalling earlier collaborations with him as co-curator of the New Alphabet program at Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
In parallel, three of Al-Shaer’s letters were published by Marianna Liosi, also a former New Alphabet collaborator and currently curator of the exhibition Techno-Ecologies and Bodies of Memory: The Environment as Battleground (Kunstraum Kreuzberg-Bethanien, Berlin). Liosi integrated the texts into the exhibition’s curatorial framework, further extending the circulation of these vital testimonies.
Looking farther afield, I Am Still Alive will soon reach North American audiences: David Naimon, host of the excellent Between the Covers podcast, opens the September 8 episode with Rickey Laurentiis with a special sponsored mention of the book. Available as a print-on-demand edition and professional eBook through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, our partner bookshop Printed Matter (NYC), and eeeeee.pub, the work is gradually building visibility across continents.
The book is dedicated to Mahmoud Al-Shaer’s three-year-old twins, Majd and Nai. All proceeds from its sales going directly to his family.
Through these conversations and channels, I Am Still Alive bears witness to survival, resilience, and the act of writing from within devastation—refusing both erasure and indifference.
Resources & Context (Selected Recommendations)
Medecins Sans Frontiers, msf.org/gaza-israel-war
Mahmoud Al-Shaer, Munir Fasheh, Meena Kandasamy, and Adania Shibli, The New Alphabet School #Transmitting , Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, 1 September 2021 (video with readings and lectures)
Mahmoud Al-Shaer et al., eds., DNA #22: New Alphabet School: Practices of Knowledges Production in Art, Activism and Collective Research (Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Spector Books, 2024)
Mohammed Al-Zaqzooq and Mahmoud Al-Shaer, eds., Letters from Gaza: By the People from the Year that Has Been (Penguin, 2025)
Omri Boehm, “Wie ohne Hass über Israel & Palästina sprechen?”, Sternstunde Philosophie, SRF Kultur, 29 October 2023 (video/audio conversation with Barbara Bleisch und Wolfram Eilenberger)
Shourideh C. Molavi, Environmental Warfare in Gaza (Pluto Press, 2024)
Mohammed El-Kurd, Perfect Victims (Haymarket, 2025)
Omar El Akkad, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (CanonGate, 2025)
Omar El Akkad in conversation with David Naimon (Between the Covers podcast)
”Mahmoud Khalil Tells His Story,” Ezra Klein podcast
“When is it Genocide?”, Philippe Sands in conversation with Ezra Klein (podcast)
Adam Shatz, “The World After October 7,” LRB, 24 July 2025
Forensic Architecture “The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation” (report, 2025)
Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land (Verso, 2007)