SU alumnus wins Pulitzer for essays on Palestinian experience in Gaza
Mosab Abu Toha earned a Pulitzer Prize Monday for his essays documenting his experience living in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. He graduated from Syracuse University in 2023 with a master’s of fine arts in creative writing. Arabella Klonowski | Staff Writer
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet and Syracuse University alumnus, won a Pulitzer Prize Monday for his “essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza.”
The Pulitzer Board honored Abu Toha for a series of four essays published from 2023 to 2024 in The New Yorker, where he documented his experiences living in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The board described Abu Toha’s works as “deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel.”
In November 2023, Israeli forces detained and later released Toha after he and his family attempted to flee southern Gaza.
His award-winning essay, “The Pain of Traveling While Palestinian,” highlights the challenges of his imprisonment and shares other stories of navigating international travel as a Palestinian citizen, even before the war.
Abu Toha graduated from SU’s College of Arts and Sciences in May 2023 with a master of fine arts in creative writing. He currently holds a visiting scholar position on the university’s faculty. In this role, he participates in a national program — Scholars at Risk — that provides academic appointments to “threatened” scholars.
Abu Toha has published two collections of Arabic and English poetry, titled “Forest of Noise” in 2024 and “Things You May Find Hidden in my Ear” in 2022. Both explore his upbringing in Gaza and raising children as a young father.
Now living in Syracuse, he writes about his experiences, reflecting on his time in prison, family separation, growing up in a refugee camp and facing food insecurity. Abu Toha spoke at a Syracuse event in January hosted at ArtRage gallery, talking about “Forest of Noise” and answered questions about United States involvement in the Israel-Hamas war.
“I dedicate this success to my family, friends, teachers, and students in Gaza,” Toha said in a post on X Monday night. “Blessings to the 31 members of my family who were killed in one air strike in 2023.”
