Drawing on years of reporting from Palestine and Israel, award-winning foreign correspondent Johan-Mathias Sommarström brings a unique and deeply human perspective to a new journalistic novel, Where We Met the Darkness. Driven by his determination to reveal the realities faced by ordinary people, this book explores through interwoven stories how individual lives reflect the broader human experience under fear, deprivation, and trauma.

Following the lives of Noa, a young Israeli woman coping with the aftermath of the October 7 terror attack, and Amin, a father in Gaza enduring bombardment, hunger, and the desperate struggle to protect his family, the book illuminates the human cost of war.

Through their experiences, he shows how life persists even amid darkness. Yet one profound question remains: when life is consumed by darkness, how and why do we find the way forward?