New UK indie Akoya is to publish a harrowing collection of testimonies from Gaza entitled Book of Wills. Camilla Hagen bought world rights direct from the book’s editor, the poet and translator Reem Ghanayem. The publisher says Book of Wills is an anthology ‘where each writer takes a different approach, not limited to a single perspective – it is the testimony to the human cost of war’.
The book, due to be pubished in spring 2026, is among forthcoming titles being talked about by the publisher at this week’s Frankfurt Book Fair. The publisher adds that the anthology ‘explores the fear, desperation, heartbreak, numbness and hope, experienced daily by Palestinians, as they wake up unsure if this day is going to be their last. Three of the authors have been killed in the war.
Ghanayem says: “I wanted, through the book, to collect from the wails, the mourning and the cries the voices of those who are able to record the last moments.”
Launched this year by co-founder and publisher Camilla Hagen, Akoya is a new literary press that celebrates ‘courageous, visionary and innovative writing’. Its MD Xenia Stafford explains that the house’s name is the Japanese word for a particular type of pearl. “The name has a particular resonance to the types of books we are publishing, each book a pearl, born from complex human experiences. Our visual identity reflects elements of the universal symbol of the pearl and circle that exists in both man-made and natural states.”