Black Coffee

I wake up early. I make my morning cup of coffee and sit down, Browse the news. My coffee is bitter; I never like sugar. And so was the news of my country. And so, too, were the details of my life: bitter.

I would neglect the news and write until all the bitterness ran out of my ink, until I was exhausted. When I read my writings, I listed them under the title ‘Black Coffee’.

Since black coffee is a companion of sorrow in our Palestinian society, it is, perhaps surprisingly, also served at weddings.

In my book, Black Coffee, I have included short stories woven from situations and ideas that tell us about the affairs of our society and specific experiences. It also contains thoughts about love, aiming to convey specific ideas for the reader to contemplate, alongside a very small dose of what we live through here in our country.

Samar Qasim, born in 1984.

She was born in Kawkab Abu al-Hija, a village in the Galilee, in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1948. Its residents are called by several names, the most common being ‘Arabs of 1948.’

She was born into a family of six, with a mother, a father, and four children.

She was born to a father who was a distinguished poet and writer, from whom she derived her ability and talent for writing.

She completed her BA in Sociology at the University of Haifa in 2007 and worked in social work. However, she had always been writing from an early age and read extensively.

The situations and circumstances she encountered in her work helped her write several purposeful works and short stories to convey important ideas.