Books for Arab American Heritage Month

From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values.

“I can’t think of a more important piece of writing to read right now.”
—Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars and There There

A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Egyptian-American astrophysicist Sarafina Nance shares her personal story of overcoming sexism, racism, and adversity, and appreciating the most important moments and people in her life by focusing on her lifelong love of the stars.

Queer. Muslim. Arab American. A proudly Fat woman. Randa Jarrar is all of these things. In her memoir of a cross-country road trip, she explores how to claim joy in an unraveling and hostile America

A deeply moving family story about identity, faith, and belonging set in the Muslim immigrant enclave of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn following three siblings coming of age over the course of one Ramadan.

A frank and entertaining memoir—from the daughter of renowned author and academic Edward Said.

Follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she tries to lead an authentic life

A novel about the incantatory power of words and the revolutionary sparks of love, family, and poetry–set against the indifferent, relentless march of time.

Dina Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.