Palestine in My Heart

Description

In the shadow of Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza (almost all refugees from the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Jewish settlers in 1948), this collection, drawn from poems written over several years and culminating in the fire of the current onslaught, captures the agony and suffering of a defenceless people attacked with high precision weapons and a propaganda machine dedicated to advancing US/NATO control over the ‘non-white’ world. By turns lyrical (in evoking the hopes and pain experienced by a civilian population) and satirical (in describing the monstrous criminality of Israeli leaders like Benjamin ‘Netanyaope’), Ntuli gives free rein to his intense empathy for victims of unending injustice and the horror of life in their concentration camp. This blend of tones is complemented by different structural devices involving dialogues, elegies and laments, and draws on a range of South African references which bring the subject matter close to home. Another key aspect to this book is the plethora of reproductions of his eye-catching and profound sculptures. These images capture the delicacy and grossness of the human form as it struggles with raw emotion – the agony of the people of Palestine being crucified by an implacable enemy.