When The World Sleeps By Francesca Albanese

Francesca Albanese, the first woman to serve as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, conveys the soul of a people through ten unforgettable stories of resilience and humanity.

When the World Sleeps is the deeply personal and politically urgent account of Albanese’s path to bearing witness to the Palestinian struggle. Across ten profoundly affecting chapters, she traces the experiences, encounters and moral reckonings that have shaped her professional and personal understanding of Palestine. At once devastating and hopeful, the book moves beyond headlines and statistics to illuminate the people themselves, offering a powerful new lens on the global failures that have led us here, and the fragile possibilities that still exist for a shared future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Albanese says, ‘I aim to grapple with the past and present of Palestine, with the hope of imagining a better future for all who share the land.’

Albanese is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. A jurist, lecturer, and scholar, she has over a decade of experience in human rights, having worked with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. In these roles, she has advised the United Nations, governments, and civil society in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. In 2023, she published her first book, J’Accuse (Fuoriscena). A figure of the highest international standing, Albanese is a global point of reference for media covering the Palestinian issue.

The spirit of a place lies in the people who inhabit it, in the stories that intertwine through its streets. Anyone following the harrowing events that have unfolded in the Middle East who wants to understand Palestine will discover in When the World Sleeps – a gallery of stories, characters, and places that allow us to understand what Palestine was, and what it has be come today.

About the author:

Francesca Albanese is an international lawyer, who has specialised in human rights and the Middle East. Since May 2022, she has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory.

Her academic works cover various aspects of the Question of Palestine, the legal situation in Israel/Palestine and Palestinian forced displacement, including the mandate and work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Since 2018, Albanese has taught and lectured at various universities in Europe and the Middle East. She is also responsible for the research and legal assistance program on migration and asylum seekers in the Arab world for the think tank Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), and is a co-founder of the Global Network on the Question of Palestine (GNQP), a coalition of prominent regional and international experts and scholars engaged in the issue of Israel/Palestine.

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