Celebrating Arab American Heritage Month

By Coll Rowe | March 8 2023 | Arab American

April is Arab American Heritage Month and Penguin Random House Education is celebrating Arab American heritage and culture by recognizing our authors who have shared their experiences and perspectives through their writing and work. The titles included in this list discuss topics ranging from growing up Arab American to finding oneself to living as a refugee, from complex and unique perspectives. The collection includes memoirs, fiction, and non-fiction.

How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?
How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?
Being Young and Arab in America
Moustafa Bayoumi
978-0-14-311541-0
An eye-opening look at how young Arab- and Muslim-Americans are forging lives for themselves in a country that often mistakes them for the enemy.
$18.00 US
Jul 28, 2009
Paperback
336 Pages
Penguin Books
It Won't Always Be Like This
It Won't Always Be Like This
A Graphic Memoir
Malaka Gharib
978-1-9848-6029-3
An intimate graphic memoir about an American girl growing up with her Egyptian father's new family, forging unexpected bonds and navigating adolescence in an unfamiliar country—from the award-winning author of I Was Their American Dream.
$19.99 US
Sep 20, 2022
Paperback
224 Pages
Ten Speed Graphic
Love Is an Ex-Country
Love Is an Ex-Country
A Memoir
Randa Jarrar
978-1-948226-58-5
Queer. Muslim. Arab American. A proudly Fat femme. Randa Jarrar is all of these things. In this "exuberant, defiant and introspective" memoir of a cross-country road trip, she explores how to claim joy in an unraveling and hostile America (The New York Times Book Review). 
$26.00 US
Feb 02, 2021
Hardcover
240 Pages
Catapult
Looking for Palestine
Looking for Palestine
Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family
Najla Said
978-1-59463-275-4
A frank and entertaining memoir—from the daughter of Edward Said—now in paperback.
$17.00 US
Sep 02, 2014
Paperback
272 Pages
Riverhead Books
What Strange Paradise
What Strange Paradise
A novel
Omar El Akkad
978-1-9848-9924-8
From the widely acclaimed, author of American War—a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child.
$16.00 US
Jun 07, 2022
Paperback
256 Pages
Vintage
I Was Their American Dream
I Was Their American Dream
A Graphic Memoir
Malaka Gharib
978-0-525-57511-5
“A portrait of growing up in America, and a portrait of family, that pulls off the feat of being both intimately specific and deeply universal at the same time. I adored this book.”—Jonny Sun, author and illustrator of everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too and New York Times bestselling illustrator of Gmorning, Gnight! by Lin-Manuel Miranda
$16.99 US
Apr 30, 2019
Paperback
160 Pages
Clarkson Potter
The Other Americans
The Other Americans
A Novel
Laila Lalami
978-0-525-43603-4
National Book Award Finalist
$17.00 US
Mar 17, 2020
Paperback
320 Pages
Vintage
You Exist Too Much
You Exist Too Much
A Novel
Zaina Arafat
978-1-64622-059-5
A "provocative and seductive debut" of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she tries to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine)
$16.95 US
Jun 08, 2021
Paperback
272 Pages
Catapult
An American Family
An American Family
A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice
Khizr Khan
978-0-399-59251-5
This inspiring memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father and captivating DNC speaker is the story of one family’s pursuit of the American dream.
$18.00 US
Sep 04, 2018
Paperback
304 Pages
Random House Trade Paperbacks
A Map of Home
A Map of Home
A Novel
Randa Jarrar
978-0-14-311626-4
From America to the Middle East and back again— the sparkling story of one girl’s childhood, by an exciting new voice in literary fiction
$17.00 US
Aug 25, 2009
Paperback
304 Pages
Penguin Books
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
A Novel
Michael David Lukas
978-0-399-18118-4
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award in Fiction, the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Award, and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the spellbinding new novel from the bestselling author of The Oracle of Stamboul, following a young man's captivating journey from California to Cairo to unravel centuries-old family secrets.
$17.00 US
May 19, 2020
Paperback
288 Pages
Random House Trade Paperbacks
Girls That Never Die
Girls That Never Die
Poems
Safia Elhillo
978-0-593-22948-4
Intimate poems that explore feminine shame and violence and imagine what liberation from these threats might look like, from the award-winning author of The January Children
$17.00 US
Jul 12, 2022
Paperback
144 Pages
One World
The Night Counter
The Night Counter
A Novel
Alia Yunis
978-0-307-45363-1
A magical debut that asks, which stories would you tell if you only had nine days left in which to tell them?
$15.00 US
Jul 13, 2010
Paperback
384 Pages
Crown
Tags: ,