Dear Sondos

Publication date: 5 December 2025.
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 Nátali de Mello, their journey invites you as their guest, and offers a blueprint to a new world, challenging old narratives with a new song.

Cover illustration by Carcazan.

Authors: DNL & Sondos Al-Saqqa

Reviews

"I came across the book Dear Sondos when.. the founder of indie micropublisher Carcazan, DMed me online. I'm so pleased she did – Dear Sondos is one of those labour-of-love, hope-giving projects that tend not to happen at the big publishing houses.. The writing is full of empathy and a youthful lack of inhibition, and really moving."
Sarah Donaldson,  Journalist and Co-founder of The Nerve

"Brimming with humanity." Patrick   

"Dear Sondos is the kind of book that changes you - it restores faith in humanity in such a beautiful and honest way." Sian Maciejowski, Poet   
"The layout is so beautiful and makes it very easy to follow, beckoning me to turn the pages faster than my eyes could read.. On a very personal level, it walked me through the past year in particular.. This is a book that speaks 'liberation' through connection, truth and friendship." Stones For Solidarity   

"A hopeful portrayal of the purity and importance of human connection." Mia of Chapters Booksop, Berlin.