December 6, 2024 marks one year since Israel assassinated Palestinian writer, poet and educator Refaat Alareer with a targeted airstrike on the second floor apartment where he was taking refuge with extended family. The strike also killed his brother, his brother’s son, his sister and her three children.

Israel’s targeting of poets and intellectuals was not new, but his killing struck a chord around the world, as Refaat had committed his life to the study and practice of the English language, believing it to be a tool of liberation and empowerment. Through his work and his interviews, he gathered a global audience of admirers, those of us at Drop Site News among them.

After he was killed, his poem “If I Must Die” became a worldwide viral sensation, a window into the soul of the man who’d been ripped from the world. The poem is addressed to his daughter Shaymaa Refaat Alareer, and is a plea to her and all of us to keep hope for a better world alive. “If I must die/you must live/to tell my story/to tell my story/to sell my things/to buy a piece of cloth/and some strings/(make it white with a long tail)/so that a child, somewhere in Gaza/while looking heaven in the eye/awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—and bid no one farewell/not even to his flesh/not even to himself—sees the kite/my kite you made/flying up above/and thinks for a moment an angel is there/bringing back love.”

He then concludes:

If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

On December 10, Refaat’s life will be published as a tale. The book, “If I Must Die,” is a collection of his poetry and prose, along with excerpts of important interviews he gave, compiled by his friend and student Yousef Aljamal.

As a small measure of justice, we want to turn Refaat’s book into what it desperately deserves to be: an international bestseller. We need your help and we have just five days to make it happen.

First, sign this pledge to buy the book this coming Tuesday. We’ll send you an email to remind you to do it that day. But more importantly, pre-order it now at bookshop.org or Amazon.

In April, Israel struck and killed Shaymaa, her husband, and their two-month-old son. It is up to us to let Refaat’s life be a tale. We at Drop Site have nothing to do with his book, which is published by OR Books, but we want to help make it a bestseller. It is, on the one hand, a true masterwork, and a rich and poignant read you will return to again and again.

Yet we want you to purchase it for another reason, too: To let it fly to the top of the rankings like a kite. Seeing Refaat’s book flying there will be a small sign to Palestinians facing genocide that the world has not forgotten them – and it will send a message to his assassins that we haven’t forgotten them either. Nothing can bring back Refaat or his family but this is one small dose of justice we can dole out.

The Amazon ranking is the one that the publishing industry follows most closely, and the one that would land the hardest if it climbs to the very top, so if you use Amazon, please buy it there. If you’re doing holiday shopping, buy 10 copies and give them out. Our understanding is that buying more than 10 doesn’t count toward the rankings because they’re assumed to be bulk orders. (For our part, we'll be buying 535 copies and hand-delivering them to each member of Congress.)

Sign this petition to pledge to buy a book and we’ll send you a reminder email next Tuesday, December 10. Enter your phone number if you want a text reminder too, but it’s not necessary. We won’t sell or share your contact info. (Royalties from the sale of the book go to Refaat's surviving family, OR Books told us.)

Collectively, we have the capacity to do this. We can do this. Let it be a tale.