Palestine is a microcosm of the world: wretched raging fraught and fragmented. On fire.
Stubborn. Ineligible. Dignified. The lens we lend the Palestinian reveals how we see each other
how we see everything else. The world continues to witness perverse violence unfolding on our
screens broken limbs homes and futures permeate our dreams. In this context of numbing horror
Mohammed El-Kurd writes a defiant elegy an ode to the indelible existence of his nation to
the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal. With lyrical precision El-Kurd dissects
‘humanization’ as a deeply misguided tactic of the marginalized revealing the perplexing logic
at its heart: the desire to make humans out of humans. Rather than shrinking the scope of
Palestinian humanity to victimhood El-Kurd demands that friends and foes look Palestinians in
the eye forgoing condemnation and deference. Instead solidarity with Palestine requires
recognizing it as a universal cause irreverently mocking the delusions of its oppressors and
building movements rooted in dignity. Perfect Victims plunges into the depths of heartbreak
to sculpt language for the brutality of genocide resurfacing as a steady inextinguishable
flame.
