A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

One of the books that arrived last week in our shipment was Valerie Zenatti's A Bottle in the Gaza Sea. I brought it home the same night I cataloged it and stayed up late reading the entire book. It is the story of a teenage Israeli girl that sends a message in a bottle to Gaza, imagining it will be picked up by a girl her age. It is picked up by a Palestinian young man and the rest of the story chronicles their growing email relationship and very separate lives. I found the story compelling. One statement by the fictional "Gazaman" has haunted me this past week. . .

"The singular doesn't exist anymore: no me, you, him, her, there's just the plural - Palestinians. The poor Palestinians. Or the evil Palestinians, it all depends. But the plural is always there. To anyone who loves us without knowing us, or who loathes us without knowing us, we're never one + one + one, but the whole four million. We all carry our whole people on our backs and it's so, so heavy, it's crushing, it just makes you want to close your eyes. . ."

This book will be at the top of my high school "must-read" list for 2009. . .