''Footnotes in Gaza'' is a
journalistic graphic narrative by
Joe Sacco about bloody incidents between Israelis and Paletinians in Gaza during the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
. It was published in 2009 by
Henry Holt and Company
Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. Currently, the company publishes in the fields ...
in the U.S. and
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960.
Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...
in the UK.
The book describes the author's quest to get to the bottom of what happened in
Khan Yunis
Khan Yunis ( ar, خان يونس, also spelled Khan Younis or Khan Yunus; translation: ''Caravansary fJonah'') is a city in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Khan Yunis had a population of 142,63 ...
and in
Rafah in
Gaza
Gaza may refer to:
Places Palestine
* Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea
** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip
** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Lebanon
* Ghazzeh, a village in ...
in November 1956. According to
United Nations figures quoted in the book, Israeli forces killed 275
Palestinians
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
in
Khan Yunis on 3 November 1956 and 111 in
Rafah on 12 November 1956.
[Hass, Amira.]
"A thin black line,"
''Haaretz
''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
'' (Nov. 2, 2010).
Sacco bases his book on conversations with Palestinians in Rafah and the neighbouring town of Khan Younis, and interweaves the events of 1956 with the events in Rafah at the time of the interviews—the bulldozing of homes, the death of
Rachel Corrie
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American activist and diarist. A member of the pro-Palestinian group International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she was crushed to death by an armored bulldozer of the Israel ...
and the reactions to the outbreak of the
Iraq War.
Publication
*Sacco, Joe (2009). ''Footnotes in Gaza'',
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960.
Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...
, .
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960.
Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...
, .
Critical reception
The ''New York Times'' book Review quotes "Joe Sacco's brilliant, excruciating books of war reportage are potent territory.... He shows how much that is crucial to our lives a book can hold"
Rachel Cooke called it "truly unique" in "combining as it does oral history, memoir and reportage with cartoons in a way that, when he started out, most people – himself included, at times – considered utterly preposterous."
''Publishers Weekly'' wrote, "Having already established his reputation as the world’s leading comics journalist, Sacco is now making a serious case to be considered one of the world’s top journalists, period. His newest undertaking is a bracing quest to uncover the truth about what happened in two Gaza Strip towns in 1956. . . . Sacco’s art is alternately epic and intimate, but it’s his exacting and harrowing interviews that make this book an invaluable and wrenching piece of journalism."
Footnotes in Gaza review
''Publishers Weekly'' (Dec. 2009).
Awards
*2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Graphic Novel FinalistEisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...
for Best Writer/Artist–Nonfiction
*2011 Angoulême International Comics Festival Worldview Award ("Prix regards sur le monde")
*2012 Oregon Book Award: Pacific Northwest College of Art Graphic Literature Award
References
Further reading
*
External links
Macmillan Publishers
{{Joe Sacco
2009 graphic novels
American graphic novels
Comics by Joe Sacco
Non-fiction graphic novels
Metropolitan Books books
Suez Crisis