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Memoir

Il mio cuore libero. La forza di una madre di Gaza

(My Free Heart)

Garzanti, November 2025, pp.256

Originally written in English

«“Are we safe now, Mom?”, a question I never knew how to answer».

Before October 7, 2023, Majd Al-Assar lived in a small house in Gaza with her husband and two children. After the Israeli attacks made her home unsafe, she had to move south along with thousands of other Palestinians.

My Free Heart is the testimony of a young mother from Gaza, who writes to keep her children – and their memory – alive during the Israel-Palestine conflict.

A story of loss, survival and motherhood.

Majd Al-Assar has two young children, just 10 and 7 years old, and every day she has to face a world that is collapsing around her. She has no weapons, yet she would do anything to protect them: not only from bombs, gunfire, and crumbling buildings, but also from a denied childhood and the risk of having no future. In order not to succumb to despair, and give meaning to her children’s lives, Majd writes: on scraps of paper, by the brief return of electricity, or in a corner of a tent full of refugees. While breaking a piece of bread into three so her children will not go to bed hungry, she holds close the memory of her small home – once filled with noise, toys, and dreams taped to the refrigerator door. She takes note of every moment of the immense struggle that is being a mother in Gaza. She may not be able to save her children or herself, but she can give them a future in her paper, immortalizing in a book that love endures, even in the harshest and most inhumane circumstances.

Garzanti, November 2025, pp.256

Majd Al-Assar

Majd Ramadan Al-Asar is a Palestinian writer and journalist, born in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza. She received her early education at UNRWA schools before pursuing her passion for literature at the Faculty of Arts – English Literature, Islamic University of Gaza, from which she graduated in 2013. Fulfilling her lifelong dream of studying literature, she went on to complete advanced studies in English Language Teaching Methods at Al-Aqsa University in 2014 and later earned a specialized postgraduate diploma in English Translation in 2023.

Alongside her academic journey, Majd has worked as an English teacher in schools under the Ministry of Education and contributed to educational programs with several Palestinian organizations. Her commitment to storytelling extends beyond the classroom: she has reported from Gaza for international newspapers including La Stampa (Italy) and Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), sharing the lived experiences, resilience, and voices of Palestinians under siege.

This book marks her debut as an author. Written from the most intimate part of her life, it draws on her personal experience of motherhood during war. Through its pages, she reflects on moments of fear and uncertainty, the daily struggles of displacement and survival, and the fragile joys that persist even in the darkest times.

For Majd, motherhood is more than an intimate role, it is a profound journey of courage, endurance, and hope. By writing this book, she seeks to transform private pain into a shared human story, honoring the strength, love, and dignity that endure against all odds.

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