“The narrow streets we knew as children were transformed into emergency corridors.” This is an excerpt from the book “Diary of a Paramedic in Gaza”, by Ali Maali Al-Turk, available free of charge in Portuguese, thanks to the collective translation work of five undergraduate Literature students from the Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH).
The work brings together reports from Palestinian paramedic Ali Maali Al-Turk about his experiences amid the war in Gaza. The collective project was carried out during the second semester of 2025, under the coordination of professor Luciana Carvalho Fonseca, from the Department of Modern Literature. The version used for the translation was in English. One of the students, who knows Arabic, helped with questions based on the original version.
In the book, Al-Turk defines the war in Gaza as genocide and reports the faith, pain, life and death in crowded hospitals, ambulances and devastated scenes, after the Israeli attack after October 7, 2023.
Part of the events narrated takes place at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital complex in the Gaza Strip. The book details the bombings and ground attacks of March 2024, when a hundred patients were killed by Israeli strikes.
The collective translation included several discussions, from the contextualization of Zionist policy in the region to decisions on the need for footnotes with references to the Quran. Using free software, the students designed the publication. To access the “Diary of a Paramedic in Gaza”, visit the Ema Livros page or the website Academia.edu.
This is not the first collective translation project by USP undergraduate students. Fonseca has already coordinated other translations, such as “Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale”, by Maria Mies, a feminist classic.
Source: www.brasildefato.com.br
