Nathan Thrall Lays Bare Everyday Reality of Life Under Occupation

Nathan Thrall won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama.” It tells the story of a school bus crash in 2012 outside of Jerusalem; the bus was carrying a group of Palestinian kindergartners when it collided with a truck, killing 6 children and their teacher. Thrall follows the accident’s aftermath and one parent’s frantic search for his son, exposing the bureaucracy and brutality of life under occupation. We talk to Thrall about what we can still learn from the crash and why he says it embodies the Israel-Palestinian conflict.