Palestinian Archives

Mother of Strangers by Suad Amiry [in Booklist]

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost

Egyptian American actor Amin El Gamal and Palestinian American actor/writer/director Lameece Issaq reunite here as hopeful lovers: 15-year-old Subhi, a prodigious mechanic, and 13-year-old village girl Shams. Palestinian writer/architect Suad Amiry, acclaimed for her memoirs and other nonfiction, debuts her first novel, inspired by the...

The Lemon Tree (Young Readers’ Edition): An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan [in School Library Journal]

31 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab, Audio, Biography, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“I wanted to write a history book in disguise,” journalist and professor Sandy Tolan announces, “and to make it feel, throughout, like a good novel. Even though the story is true.” Tolan voiced his original; here Rami Medina makes his audiobook debut: his rich, youthful...

City of a Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks [in Booklist]

22 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Palestinian, Repost

Lameece Issaq reads languidly, her voice an ongoing invitation to Rebecca Sacks’ debut in which so much happens, but by book’s end might feel narratively stagnant – not because of Sacks’ writing, but because Israel and Palestine remain relentlessly enshrouded in conflict. The opening credits wisely...

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa [in Shelf Awareness]

04 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost

Returning to the Palestinian multi-generational epic format that made her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin (2010), an international bestseller, Susan Abulhawa's haunting Against the Loveless World features another extended Palestinian clan enduring exile, surviving persecution, and (sometimes) cheating death. Abulhawa's compelling cipher is a woman with...

Apeirogon by Colum McCann [in Booklist]

11 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Biography, Fiction, Irish American, Israeli, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW When Colum McCann first considered narrating his books, he offered to audition for his own National Book Awarded Let the Great World Spin: “...

Track Changes by Sayed Kashua, translated by Mitch Ginsburg [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Israeli, Palestinian, Repost, Translation

In the "track changes" function of a word processing program, the "all markup" option preserves all deletions, additions, rewrites for the life of the document – although the last editor ultimately chooses what to accept and reject in the final version. Palestinian Israeli Sayed Kashua,...

The Parisian by Isabella Hammad [in Booklist]

08 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost

Born to a Cairo-based merchant father, raised by his paternal grandmother in Nablus, educated in a Constantinople boarding school, Midhat Kamal is already a peripatetic polyglot when he arrives in France. While he studies medicine at the University of Montpellier, he lives with a doctor...

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum [in Booklist]

20 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost

“No matter how many books you’ve read, no one has ever told you a story like this one.” The prologue’s emphathic statement is not exactly accurate. Tara Westover’s Educated (2018) and Anouk Markovits’ I Am Forbidden (2012) feature women trapped by religion and culture who...

In the Cemetery of the Orange Trees by Jeff Talarigo [in Booklist]

12 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Palestinian, Repost

Jeff Talarigo, a peripatetic global citizen whose spare, exquisite fiction also tends toward the international – Japan for The Pearl Diver (2004), the North Korean and Chinese border for The Ginseng Hunter (2008) – alchemizes his time in Gaza into this affecting novel in loosely...

All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan [in Library Journal]

21 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Palestinian, Repost, Translation

Gabra Zackman narrates with intense intimacy, as if fully aware what she's reading is more than mere words on the page. This electrifying love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man continues to inspire global headlines – it's earned author Dorit Rabinyan (Persian...

Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation edited by by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman [in Library Journal]

20 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Israeli, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost

"We didn't want to edit this book," married Jewish authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman confess. "We didn't want to write or even think…about Israel and Palestine, about the nature and meaning of occupation." But Waldman's 2014 visit to her birthplace forced both to "pay...

This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature, edited by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton [in Booklist]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Commemorating 10 extraordinary years of PalFest, the Palestine Festival of Literature, mother-son cofounders Soueif (Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed, 2014) and Hamilton (The City Always Wins, 2017) gathered 47 literary luminaries to create this essential testimony, including Suad Amiry, J. M. Coetzee, Teju...

Where the Line Is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine by Raja Shehadeh [in Booklist]

29 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Palestinian

With the publication of Palestinian Walks (2008), Shehadeh recognized Henry Abramovitch as an important “walking companion” in his lyrical, bittersweet record of the encroaching Israeli occupation of his Palestinian homeland. That mention becomes the focus of Shehadeh’s newest title, in which he chronicles a half-century...

A Palestine Reader, Part II: Adult Books [in The Booklist Reader]

03 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Lists, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

The unrelenting conflict between Palestine and Israel keeps the Middle East in the news. But for a fuller picture of the Palestinian and Palestinian-American experience than what the media can provide, here’s a starter reading list. For a list of recommended titles about Palestine for young, middle-grade,...

A Palestine Reader, Part I: Books for Youth [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab, Arab American, British, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The unrelenting conflict between Palestine and Israel keeps the Middle East in the news. But for a fuller picture of the Palestinian and Palestinian American experience than what the media can provide, here's a starter reading list for young people. Stay tuned for our list of titles about...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi

10 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2016, Young Adult Readers

Baddawi by Leila Abdelrazaq

18 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Young Adult Readers

"I believe that art is an essential element of revolution," Leila Abdelrazaq begins her "Artist Statement" on her website. She's half Palestinian and half American activist based in Chicago with a 2015 DePaul University degree who has generations of stories to share. Her Baddawi began as a webcomic "...

Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah

04 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Australian, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Palestinian, Young Adult Readers

Here's the seemingly simple story: When her grandmother falls ill, 13-year-old Hayaat decides that a jarful of her ancestral soil – a mere six miles away – will be the very thing that will make her grandmother well, so Hayaat grabs her best friend and goes off...

Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak by Deborah Ellis

18 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Israeli, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Young Adult Readers

Given the latest headlines in the Middle East, this seems to be the perfect time for another Deborah Ellis title. Best known for her Breadwinner Trilogy (The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, and Mud City) which became a tetralogy this fall with My Name is Parvana, Ellis is an...

Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher

22 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Arab, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Israeli, Memoir, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Guy Delisle is a graphic genius who draws what he sees – simply and unadornedly – with droll, minimal commentary, and creates some of the most poignant, effective, resonating memoirs ever. French Canadian Delisle has undoubtedly found international fame as a traveling artist: he recreated his temporary assignments...

BookDragon Palestinian