Mosab Abu Toha is a young Palestinian poet living in Beit Lahia, Gaza. A graduate in English Literature, he enjoys writing stories and poems of his own. Mosab is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library. As many of Gaza’s libraries were destroyed, he began a campaign in 2014 to collect donations of English- language books in what would become Gaza’s first public library for English books. Noam Chomsky, who has donated several autographed books to the library, wrote on Mosab’s behalf describing the library as “a unique resource, and what is more a refuge and a rare flicker of light and hope for the young people of Gaza.” 

In 2019-2020, Mosab will be a Harvard Scholar-at-Risk Fellow, hosted at the Department of Comparative Literature. While at Harvard, he would like to connect with linguists on “developing dialogue across walls,” and to complete a book of poems and stories presenting the life of a writer navigating the space between two opposing fronts, as well as share samples of the writing of young people and their experiences.