of a great Catastrophe: A Mixtape for the Nakba (2024)

“refugee in Poetry
I live the life that is mine
over which hovers the shadow
of a great Catastrophe” - Olivia Elias

This episode of A Reader’s Catalogue presents “of a great Catastrophe: A Mixtape for the Nakba,” a sonic curation of Palestinian songs, sounds, voices, words and memories, designed as a mixtape of culture commemoration and historical remembrance. With explicit references throughout to ‘Al Nakba’ - the mass enforced exodus through the violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings of at least 750,000 people from Palestine during the 1948 Palestine war - the mixtape reflects on this catastrophe and asks the listener to reflect critically and contextually on more than 75 years of collective experience.