Arab American Archives

Sisters of the War: Two Remarkable True Stories of Survival and Hope in Syria by Rania Abouzeid [in School Library Journal]

14 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Young Adult Readers

Adapted from No Turning Back, award-winning Lebanese Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid narrows her focus here to younger characters forced to witness Syria’s decimation under President Bashar Hafez al-Assad. In 2011, Hanin is 8, the middle of three sisters living in the “fringes” of Damascus. Although the...

Brother Alive by Zain Khalid [in Booklist]

09 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Fiction, Repost

Three boys – Youssef, Iseul, Dayo – are born in Saudi Arabia in 1990. Their distant fathers – from Pakistan, Korea, Nigeria – are Muslim students at the University of Markab, where they meet Salim, who will become the boys’ adoptive father. Salim flees Saudi...

Where Butterflies Fill the Sky: A Story of Immigration, Family, and Finding Home by Zahra Marwan [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Repost

Debut author/illustrator Zahra Marwan's inviting, evocative picture book, Where Butterflies Fill the Sky, presents her family's relocation from one desert to another on the opposite side of the world. Her poignant opening dedication, "To my parents, who should have never had to leave," immediately foreshadows...

Eleven Diverse Audiobooks in Verse [in School Library Journal]

01 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Black/African American, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Syrian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

April is National Poetry Month. Of course, reading, writing, and performing poetry can and should be done any time of the year, but April encourages newbies and doubters to give verses a try. Audiobooks are a particularly effective medium for poetry, with well-chosen narrators enhancing and...

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America by Laila Lalami [in Booklist]

31 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Moroccan American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Laila Lalami dovetails her own journey as a Morocco-born, UK-and US-educated, naturalized Muslim American, expanding into a socio-historical examination of what it means to be a “conditional citizen” in the United States. Conditional citizens, she explains, “are Americans who cannot enjoy the full rights,...

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat [in Booklist]

25 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Fiction, Repost

The “demarcation” begins over a wardrobe malfunction: a 12-year-old girl, improperly, according to the local men, dressed in shorts, arrives at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem with her mother and uncle. Exchanging the forbidden shorts for her uncle’s “baggy trousers” gives her a...

A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home edited by Nicole Chung and Mensah Demary [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab American, Australian, Black/African American, Canadian, Caribbean American, Chinese American, European, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

The title originates in poet Jamila Osman's essay, "A Map of Lost Things": "A map is only one story," writes the Canadian-born daughter of Somali immigrants who now lives in Portland, Ore. "It is not the most important story. The most important story is the...

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami [in Booklist]

20 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Moroccan American, Repost

Laila Lalami’s stupendous fourth title showcases a chorus of nine Rashomon-esque characters dealing with the hit-and-run death of a Moroccan immigrant diner owner in a California Mojave Desert town. That the novel gets a nine-member full cast (with who’s-who credits at recording’s end!), including some...

Booklist Backlist: Fictional Worlds, Real Meals [in Booklist]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Arab American, Black/African American, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Iranian, Iranian American, Japanese, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Yeah, sure: Proust and his madeleine-dipped-in-tea set the barometer for toothsome leitmotifs. I admit to the possibility that my academic indoctrination in his long, long musings made me quite the hungry reader. Or maybe I’m just always greedy for nourishment, with preferences in the belly...

Now Hear This: Priya Ayyar [in Booklist]

12 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

“Bringing these diverse books to life” is why Priya Ayyar does what she does. She narrates the books she didn’t have when she was growing up – books that resonate with her experiences as a California-born Indian American. “To think that someone who’s Muslim American...

Love from A to Z by S. K. Ali [in Booklist]

07 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In an unusual narrative structure, S. K. Ali (Saints and Misfits, 2017) inserts herself directly into her latest #OwnVoices Muslim rom-com, making her aural debut. She opens by introducing two teens intrigued with “marvels” and “oddities” – whose alternating journal entries follow – then intervenes...

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga [in Booklist]

06 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

When violent unrest arrives in Syria, Jude’s family is cleaved in half as she and her pregnant mother leave behind her father and older brother to live with her uncle’s family in Ohio. Jude perseveres with English, an unfamiliar (sometimes unwelcoming) culture, establishing new friendships,...

The Last Word: Audios of Posthumously Published Books – Part 2 [in Booklist]

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Australian, Black/African American, European, Lebanese American, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese American

The one thing in life that’s guaranteed is, well, death. But books are certainly a lasting legacy. And sometimes, when we get the books after their creator has passed on, an audiobook can breathe new life into the text, animating from beyond. A bittersweet legacy, indeed, but...

Immigrant Heritage Month by the Book(s)! [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab American, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Moroccan American, Nonfiction, Repost, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

June is #ImmigrantHeritageMonth, which began in 2014 and has been recognized and celebrated by the (Obama) White House as “a time to celebrate diversity and immigrants’ shared American heritage” since 2015. “Immigration,” the White House declares, “is part of the DNA of this great nation.” Perhaps now more than ever...

First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story by Huda Al-Marashi [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Writer Huda Al-Marashi and narrator Jeed Saddy make their respective debuts in a captivating memoir about a marriage that’s not so much arranged but destined. Al-Marashi is 6 when she meets Hadi, the son of family friends. She’s 9 as she watches him pretend-wed her 4-year-old...

American Like Me: Reflections on Life between Cultures by America Ferrera [in Booklist]

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Filipina/o American, Haitian American, Hawaiian, Indian African, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Puerto Rican, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “I believe that culture shapes identity and defines possibility; that it teaches us who we are, what to believe, and how to dream.” Actor-activist America Ferrera in her editorial and authorial debut, highlights her distinct Honduran American identity and invites 31 others she “deeply...

Now Hear This: Soneela Nankani [in Booklist]

31 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Palestinian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

She can sound like a frightened little girl on the run or a gruff old man who’s seen it all. She can talk financial crises, offer self-help guidance, embody fantasy worlds, and channel her inner Gisele Bündchen. She narrates in multiple tongues, donning accents and...

The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria by Alia Malek [in Library Journal]

26 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American

American by birth, Syrian by parentage, journalist and civil rights lawyer Alia Malek (A Country Called Amreeka) has the cultural and linguistic fluency to be both insider and outsider in either country. Through four generations of extended family stories – from her wealthy businessman great-grandfather...

The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar [in Library Journal]

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American

Two interwoven stories illuminate and haunt here, both about fatherless girls attached to mapmakers, each blurring gender lines, both enduring peripatetic, precarious journeys to reach family and safety. Twelve-year-old Nour commands her contemporary story – Manhattan-born, father lost to cancer, taken to Syria with two sisters...

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers [in Library Journal]

31 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Biography, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Dion Graham has narrated 10 – which is almost all – of McSweeney's founding publisher and literary powerhouse Dave Eggers's books. Graham showcases his staggering genius for aural incarnations across gender, ethnicity, culture, age – whatever details Eggers writes, Graham inspiringly brings to listeners' ears. Their...

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