“They’re donning those proverbial media jackets, and are equally risking their lives to get the truth out there for us,” says Thanh.

Kanafani connected with bestselling Canadian author Thanh, and they began a collaboration to chronologically shape Kanafani’s Reddit posts into the book, Pizza Before We Die: An Eyewitness Account in Gaza.

The book’s title comes from Kanafani overhearing two girls remark how they would like to try pizza before they die.

The writing community steps up

Kanafani, who writes under a pseudonym, is an engineering graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza. In 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed Israel’s refusal to allow journalists access to Gaza. In December 2024, he started sharing firsthand accounts as a resident of Gaza on Reddit.

“What we can do as writers and as readers is correct the record starting with the vocabulary. For instance, the mainstream media will use words like war and conflict,” says Thanh. “Hearing the word war implies that it’s really two-sided and you have two equal sides leading in battle.”

As foreign journalists are no longer able to enter Gaza, Kanafani’s book reveals a firsthand account of life in the Gaza Strip.

Kanafani’s account, starting from December 2024 and ending in July 2025, describes: missile launches, food shortages, the lack of everyday essentials such as adult diapers, and the need to resort to plastic as fuel for cooking.

During a Palestine demonstration in Victoria on July 1, 2025, Thanh met Jewish social and environmental activist, Bobby Arbess. When Arbess asked about publishing opportunities for Kanafani to help provide him with income, Thanh connected Arbess with self-publishing and donation platforms.

A week later, Thanh received Kanafani’s manuscript. Two weeks after that, she helped revise Kanafani’s work in chronological order. Before the end of July, Arsenal Pulp Press accepted the manuscript for publication.

“There was someone from the village who made a media post about young people who were reporting on this to please stop and save your lives, because the world has enough images and nothing is changing,” she says. “You’re stepping up to die for the truth, but nobody is taking that truth and running with it.”

Kanafani’s book is now a part of the curriculum at Toronto’s York University.

Setting the record straight

After working with Kanafani, Thanh reflected on what she’s learned about the interconnectedness of religion, colonialism and imperialism. Born in Victoria to a Vietnamese father and German mother, who immigrated at 27 and 16, her experience growing up in an immigrant family helped shape the French-colonial Vietnam setting in her 2016 debut novel Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains, which won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

“Every writer has their own path,” she says. “Because of my early experiences and probably the experiences of my family, what was most important to me as a writer was being able to somehow set the record straight, to be a voice calling from the margins and help highlight voices that were calling from the margins. That was my own kind of personal calling to the art form.”

Thanh will be joined by Carol Shaben on Oct. 22 at The NEST on Granville Island to help speak on Kanafani’s behalf at the sold out event, Yasuko Thanh: An Eyewitness Account in Gaza.

The livestream recording will be available online until Nov. 1. Portions of proceeds from the book are donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Find more information here: www.writersfest.bc.ca/festival-event-2026/48-yasuko-thanh