Quercus to publish Victoria Rose's 'confronting and urgent' diaries from Gaza

Quercus Non-Fiction is set to publish Dr Victoria Rose’s A Beautiful Place: A Doctor’s Diaries from Gaza. Kate Hewson, publisher at Quercus, pre-empted world rights from Ruth Cairns at Featherstone Cairns, for publication in spring 2026.

Rose is a senior plastic surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital. She is also one of the local and international doctors who have delivered medical aid to Gaza’s population since 7th October 2023. She has completed three tours over the last two years and kept diaries as she worked in an "increasingly devastated" city.

In A Beautiful Place, Rose reveals "the pressures and demands of saving lives in a war zone and the human stories at the heart of a humanitarian disaster".

The publisher continued: "Amid media blackouts, A Beautiful Place shares a rare front-line view of the emotional impact on local healthcare teams, as well as the devastation experienced by her patients – and the hope that, despite it all, still remains."

Hewson said: "A Beautiful Place stopped us all in our tracks when it arrived. It’s a hugely confronting and urgent read and brings home the human impact of a disaster that can be hard to understand the daily reality of.

"Dr Rose’s voice cuts through in exactly the same way as it does in her activism and media appearances, while giving voice to others who can’t currently be heard – the stories in it cannot be ignored."

Dr Rose said: "In November 2023, when I first said I was going to go back to Gaza, my family thought I was mad. As I started writing the story around these diaries I realised they could be right. I hadn’t worked in a war zone before nor had I seen this volume of civilian casualties. But the surgery itself became the easy part. As I write this book we enter the third year of this war and the second attempt at a peace deal. I eagerly await my final mission."