By Customer Experience Representative, Nicole Chipp
To celebrate Arab American Heritage Month, let’s all pick up a book written by Arab American authors! Many of these books focus on the struggles Arab Americans face due to xenophobia and islamophobia. These issues hit a peak after 9/11 and President Bush’s War on Terror.
To combat these types of negative sentiments and address our own biases, it’s essential to read books by authors that allow us to experience circumstances we’ve never encountered and places we’ve never been. In addition to books that cover heavy topics, like Guantanamo and U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, this book list also includes happier titles that showcase the everyday (or maybe fantastical) lives and love stories of Arab Americans.
Any book title marked with ♦ is either a winner or an honorable mention of the 2022 Arab American Book Awards.
General Fiction
♦ Bride of the Sea
by Eman Quotah
Following the breakdown of their marriage, Muneer returns to Saudi Arabia while Saeedah stays in Cleveland with their daughter, Hanadi. Driven by a fear of losing her daughter, Saeedah disappears with the little girl, leading to Muneer’s years-long search. This abduction changes the lives of the family, as well as their family and friends, making them choose sides and hide their own secrets.
The Skin and Its Girl
by Sarah Cypher
When a baby is born with blue skin in America, her aunt in Palestine claims she is the embodiment of their family’s sacred history. Decades after her birth, Betty is faced with a difficult decision. Should she stay in the only country she’s ever known or should she follow her heart for the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? She finds her answer in her aunt’s partially translated journals.
You Exist Too Much
by Zaina Arafat
Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine — Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings — for love and a place to call home.
The Republic of False Truths
by Alaa Al Aswany
This powerful story about the Egyptian Revolution takes us inside the battle raging between those in power and those prepared to lay down their lives in the defense of freedom. With an unforgettably vivid cast of characters and a heart-pounding narrative that is still banned across much of the region, Alaa Al Aswany gives us a deeply human portrait of the Egyptian Revolution and an impassioned retelling of his country’s turbulent recent history.
Genre Fiction
Crescent
by Diana Abu-Jaber
Romance
Thirty-nine-year-old Sirine, never married, lives with a devoted Iraqi-immigrant uncle and an adoring dog named King Babar. She works as a chef in a Lebanese restaurant, her passions aroused only by the preparation of food—until an unbearably handsome Arabic literature professor starts dropping by for a little home cooking.
The Unquiet Dead
by Ausma Zehanat Khan
Mystery
Despite their many differences, Detective Rachel Getty trusts her boss, Esa Khattak, implicitly. But she’s still uneasy at Khattak’s tight-lipped secrecy when he asks her to look into Christopher Drayton’s death. Drayton’s apparently accidental fall from a cliff doesn’t seem to warrant a police investigation. But when she learns that Drayton may have been living under an assumed name, Rachel begins to understand why Khattak is tip-toeing around this case.
A Stranger in Olondria
by Sofia Samatar
Fantasy
Jevick, the pepper merchant’s son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick’s life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. But just as he revels in Olondria’s Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl.
The Thirty Names of Night
by Zeyn Joukhadar
Magical Realism
Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother’s sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding his neighborhood masjid, his estranged sister, and even his best friend (who also happens to be his longtime crush). The only time he feels truly free is when he slips out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria.
Non-Fiction
♦ Don’t Forget Us Here
by Mansoor Adayfi
Leaving Yemen for a cultural mission to Afghanistan, 18-year-old Mansoor planned to return home soon. Instead, he found himself a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for fifteen years. Surviving the infamous interrogation program, he became a feared and hardened resistance fighter, student, writer, advocate, and historian. His memoir unveils the truth behind Guantánamo Bay.
♦ Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia
by Zainab Saleh
With the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqis abroad, hoping to return one day to a better Iraq, became uncertain exiles. Zainab Saleh shares the experiences of Iraqis she met over fourteen years of fieldwork in London – weaving a wide variety of perspectives into a narrative that draws attention to the ways Iraqis have continued to build a future atop the shards of their shattered memories.
♦ Arab American Women: Representation and Refusal
Edited by Michael W. Suleiman, Suad Joseph, and Louise Cainkar
Arab American women have played an essential role in shaping their homes, their communities, and their countries for centuries. Their contributions, often marginalized academically and culturally, are receiving long-overdue attention in the emerging interdisciplinary field of Arab American women’s studies. The collected essays in this volume capture the history and significance of Arab American women, addressing issues of migration, transformation, and reformation as these women invented occupations, politics, philosophies, scholarship, literature, arts, and, ultimately, themselves.
Out of Place
by Edward Said
From the same man who penned the seminal work Orientalism and was a founding figure of postcolonial studies comes a compelling memoir detailing the feelings of displacement and exile felt by many. Out of Place depicts a young man’s coming of age and the origin story of one of the 20th century’s most influential intellectuals.
Children & Young Adult
Man o’ War
by Cory McCarthy
Young Adult (14-17 Years)
River struggles with feelings of unhappiness, until they have a run-in with Indigo “Indy” Wait. Face-to-face with an affirmed queer person, River leaps out of the closet and into the shark tank. Literally. What follows is a wrenching journey of self-discovery that spans years and winds through layers of coming out, transition, and top surgery, promising a free life for River with so much more than happiness: A life that’s full of trans joy and true love.
If You Could Be Mine
by Sara Farizan
Young Adult (14-18 Years)
Sahar, a teenage lesbian living in Iran, has loved Nasrin since childhood. Nasrin swears she loves Sahar back, but she is rich, spoiled, and unwilling to disappoint her mother. When Nasrin’s family announces her engagement to a doctor, Sahar is heartsick. Willing to take desperate measures, Sahar hatches a scheme to transition, certain that Nasrin would marry her if she were a man.
Once Upon an Eid: Stories of Hope and Joy by 15 Muslim Voices
Edited by S.K. Ali and Aisha Saeed
Juvenile Anthology (8-12 Years)
Read from some of the most brilliant Muslim voices writing today, in this anthology all about the most joyful holiday of the year: Eid! Eid: The short, single-syllable word conjures up a variety of feelings and memories for Muslims. Maybe it’s waking up to the sound of frying samosas and simmering pistachio kheer, maybe it’s the pleasure of putting on a new outfit for Eid prayers, or maybe it’s the gift-giving and holiday parties to come that day. Whatever it may be, for those who cherish this day of celebration, the emotional responses may be summed up in another short and sweet word: joy.
Sitti’s Secrets
by Naomi Shihab Nye, Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
Picture Book (5-8 Years)
Mona travels from America to Palestine to visit her grandma, her Sitti. Without the ease of speaking the same language, Sitti and Mona learn to communicate and build a tight bond cut too short by the end of the vacation. When Mona returns, she sees the news and writes a letter to the President, telling her Sitti’s secrets, telling him they would be great friends, and telling him they only want peace.
