The Sea Cloak is acollection of 11 stories by the author, journalist, and womens rights campaigner, Nayrouz Qarmout. Drawing from her own experiences growing up in aSyrian refugee camp, as well as her current life in Gaza, these stories stitch together apatchwork of different perspectives into what it means to be awoman in Palestine today.

Whether following the daily struggles of orphaned children fighting to survive in the rubble of recent bombardments, or mapping the complex, cultural tensions between different generations of refugees in wider Gazan society, these stories offer rare insights into one of the most talked about, but least understood cities in the Middle East. Taken together, the collection affords us alocal perspective on aglobal story, and it does so thanks to acast of (predominantly female) characters whose vantage point is rooted, firmly, in that most cherished of things, thehome.

Translated from the Arabic by Perween Richards.