Morsi recently returned to Copenhagen from an assignment for a Danish NGO in Gaza. While waiting outside a row of basement shops, he noticed a feature he had written two days earlier, titled “It is only in Gaza you die twice,” spread atop a pile of newspapers in a nearby seafood shop.
The article detailed his encounter with twelve-year-old Sara in Shuja’iyya, whose home and school were destroyed in an Israeli air strike. Despite the devastation, Sara focused on her love for school and her friends, asking Morsi to photograph her in her uniform so her peers could see how much she missed them.
Morsi contrasts this personal connection with the detached nature of war coverage, noting that in reality, there are no heroes or glory, only collapsed worlds. He recalls visiting the Shifa morgue in Rimal, where parents searched through bodies for their children, an experience that left a deep emotional impact.
The moment the fishmonger slapped an Atlantic Cod onto the newspaper featuring Sara’s story, Morsi felt a profound sense of failure. He realized that while one part of the world digests the news of another, he wanted to write to change the world.
His perspective is shaped by his own experience growing up Arab in Denmark, where he faced being reduced to a caricature and subjected to bullying. He describes his school years as an emotional battlefield, fighting against stereotypes perpetuated by media and peers.
Morsi believes that the only way to keep his soul whole is to write the whole story, even in fiction. He aims to share the stories of people he has met, which he feels are rarely seen in mainstream media or film, such as a Palestinian girl dreaming of going to school.