hi all! i’m looking to read more books from the middle eastern / arab diaspora. i’m a big fan of the writing styles of susan abulhawa and zoulfa katouh. would love more fiction recs, since i feel like most middle eastern authors focus on memoirs (which i enjoy as well). open to anything though!
by littlehijabii
11 Comments
Zebibah and the King lol
(Not meant to be taken too seriously, but it is a real book by a middle eastern author).
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi is a good fiction horror/war story set in contemporary (2010’s I think) Iraq by an Iraqi author.
The Age of Orphans, Laleh Khadivi
The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine
Leila Aboulela is Sudanese British, so not from the ME but still part of the Arabic-speaking world. I really liked *Elsewhere, Home*, a short story collection.
Amal El-Mohtar, co-author of *This is How You Lose the Time War*, is Lebanese Canadian and has an extensive catalogue of science fiction short stories.
I would also be remiss not to mention the Palestinian American author Naomi Shihab Nye, who is best known for her poetry but also writes prose.
i’ve been reading all of hala alyan’s work recently! she’s palestinian-american with syrian heritage as well. i loved both salt houses and the arsonists’ city (both fiction) as well as her new memoir, i’ll tell you when i’m home.
the thirty names of night by zeyn joukhadar(syrian-american) was really beautiful as well.
Our Riches, by Kaouther Adimi, is pretty special
_The Book Censor’s Library_ by Bothayna Al-Essa (Kuwait, fiction, translated from Arabic)
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin, its a modern Pride and Prejudice retelling.
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanae.
The obvious choice is to recommend Khaled Hosseini’s books (*A Thousand Splendid Suns* being the best one, imo), but there’s also *Secret Son* by Laila Lalami, *The Bastard of Istanbul* by Elif Shafak, and *The Lion Women of Tehran* by Marjan Kamali.
A thousand splendid suns – Hosseini Khaled !