Dear Sondos

A narrative collection of exchanged messages and letters between a Jewish girl in New York and a Palestinian girl in Gaza charting their blossoming friendship against the backdrop of genocide, sharing stories, memories, hopes and dreams, whilst dealing with moments of shock within the embrace of reality and their respective experiences of erasure.

Wars, genocides and tropes aim to erase and separate. Not for Davie, a Jewish girl from New York, and Sondos, a girl in Gaza, born and raised in Palestine. When the two start exchanging messages and then emails following Davie's enchantment with Sondos's poetry collection received as a thank you for Davie's support, the two conjure a surprising friendship learning about each other's lives, and realising just how close they are despite their circumstances. Within these two polar yet concurrent realities flicker uniting emotions, personality, the power of empathy and listening, hopes and dreams in impossible times and memories as if already buried by reality yet being something to still aspire towards. A painful parallel of each author's respective experience of erasure permeates tenderly. As these two authors get to know eachother, so too do we join their embrace. Their unlikely connection transcends borders, politics, religion and nationalities with their most powerful weapon: humanity. And a love of donuts. With beautifully intricate map illustrations by Natali De Mello their journey invites you as their guest, and offers a blueprint to a new world, challenging old narratives with a new song.