Watermelon Books, Holy Ground, 4874 W. Adams Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90016

Friday, 28 August 2026 • 7:30PM

Free entry, all welcome, books available, along with food, drinks, and live music.

When we say, “Palestine is the center of the world,” we mean Palestine has become a world rallying cry against war, occupation, and apartheid, and a call for freedom of expression. These days, it has become the litmus test by which many politicians are judged, and friendships are measured. As Swedish ecologist Andreas Malm argues, “the destruction of Palestine is the destruction of the earth.” 

The preservation of Palestine as a country, a people, and a culture, with its rich literary history, is therefore paramount.

In this evening designed to create conversation and new friendships, Jordan Elgrably presents several books curated by The Markaz Review, the literary arts review for the SWANA region, including Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader, which he co-edited with Malu Halasa. He makes the case for Palestine as a central conceit of world literature today, just as South African literature served as a rallying cry for freedom in the 1980s and early 1990s.

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Jordan Elgrably is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and editor, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and The Paris Review. He is the editor of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights 2024) and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories Press 2025). He was the founder and director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001-2020), and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Rachel Corrie Conscience and Courage Award from the ADC, and grants from Open Society Foundations and Hawthornden. The founding editor of The Markaz Review, today he serves as TMR’s publisher and editor-at-large.

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Performing on oud is Dimitris Mahlis, a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles. Since coming to LA, Dimitris’ skills on oud, guitar and other stringed instruments have led him to a rich variety of performing and recording experiences with some of the best domestic and international artists in the Los Angeles area. In addition to work on film soundtracks, including Argo, Dimitris has performed and toured throughout the world with artists such as Perla Batalla, A.R. Rahman, Ebi Hamedi, Dionisis Savopoulos, Freddie Hubbard, Thanasis Papakonstantinou, and Azar Lawrence, to name but a few. He composes all the original music for his projects including six albums with his duo project Wahid and Protoleia” with the Mahlis-Panos Project, Prana with the trio Prana and Aphrodite Moves On with his electric guitar-based quartet, Babaghanoush. These days he performs with The Dimitris Mahlis Trio.