Asmaa al-Ghoul on why she writes
Al-Monitor contributor Asmaa al-Ghoul shares her thoughts on journalism.
Asmaa al-Ghoul has been writing for Al-Monitor since December 2012. A journalist from the Rafah refugee camp based in Gaza, she is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Palestine Pulse.
Al-Monitor: Why did you decide to become a journalist?
Ghoul: I didn’t decide. Journalism is not a decision; it either happens by coincidence or the profession itself chooses you. Journalism is much more powerful than a mere decision. It conspires with coincidence and literature writing to make you fall in its trap. This is what happened to me. I began writing poetry as a child and found out that writing is all I’m good at.
I wrote my first article for the paper Sawt al-Nisaa [Women’s Voice] when I was still in high school in 2000. But I had published a few poems before that in the literary newspaper Yaraat.
