Diversity Reads - Voices of Middle Eastern HeritageLike this list

22 items

• Behind You Is the Sea

  a Novel

  Darraj, Susan Muaddi

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  Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families -- the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars -- Palestinian immigrants who've all found a different welcome in America.Their various fates…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Dreamer

  My Life on the Edge

  Kadri, Nazem

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  No one who knows the game is unfamiliar with the story of the NHL's first Muslim Stanley Cup winner, Nazem Kadri, nor does anyone doubt his warmth and openness in front of a microphone, or his eagerness to challenge the next generation of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Hope Is a Woman's Name

  My Journey as a Bedouin Palestinian Activist in Israel

  El'Sana-Alh'jooj, Amal

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  Where others come up against obstacles, Amal builds bridges; not by sacrificing her identity, but by embracing it. Each thread of her identity--Bedouin, Arab, woman, feminist, Palestinian, and Israeli--is woven into the tent of her life, a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• My Friends

  a Novel

  Matar, Hisham, 1970-

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  One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Evil Eye

  a Novel

  Rum, Etaf

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  The acclaimed author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents.

• A Stranger in Your Own City

  Travels in the Middle East's Long War

  Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith

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  An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war. This is not a book about Iraq's history or an inventory of the many Middle Eastern wars that have consumed the nation over…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Hijab Butch Blues

  a Memoir

  H, Lamya

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  Fourteen years old and growing up in the Middle East, Lamya is an overachiever and a class clown, qualities that help her hide in plain sight when she realizes she has a crush on her teacher-her female teacher. She's also fourteen when she…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Read Dangerously

  the Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times

  Nafisi, Azar

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  Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi explores the most probing questions of our time, arming readers with a resistance reading list that includes Toni Morrison, Salman…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Narinjah

  the Bitter Orange Tree

  Alhārthī, Jūkhah

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  Zuhur, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she can't help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• No Land to Light on

  a Novel

  Zgheib, Yara

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  Sama and Hadi are a young Syrian couple in love, dreaming of their future in the country that brought them together. They are giddily awaiting the birth of their son, a boy whose native language will be freedom and belonging. When Sama is…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Arsonists' City

  a Novel

  Alyan, Hala, 1986-

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  A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home.

• The Bad Muslim Discount

  a Novel

  Masood, Syed

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  Following two families from Pakistan and Iraq in the 90s through to San Francisco in 2016, a comic novel about being Muslim immigrants in modern America.

• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. 1

  a Comic

  Amirpour, Ana Lily

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  Strange things are afoot in Bad City. The Iranian ghost town, home to prostitutes, junkies, pimps and other sordid souls, is a bastion of depravity and hopelessness where a lonely vampire, The Girl, stalks the town's most unsavory…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Man @ The_airport

  How Social Media Saved My Life One Syrian's Story

  Al Kontar, Hassan, 1981-

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  Exiled by war and trapped by geopolitics, Al Kontar used social media and humour to tell his story to the world, becoming an international celebrity and ultimately finding refuge in Canada.

• The Heartbeat of Iran

  Real Voices of a Country and Its People

  Kangarlou, Tara

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  This is the first book to show western readers what life in Iran is really like, beyond the often hostile headlines in the mainstream media.

• The Republic of False Truths

  a Novel

  Aswānī, ʻAlā', 1957-

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  A devastating work of fiction about the Egyptian revolution, taking us inside the battle raging between those in power and those prepared to lay down their lives in the defense of freedom.

• Silence Is a Sense

  a Novel

  AlAmmar, Layla

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  A woman sits in her apartment in an unnamed English city, absorbed in watching the dramas of her neighbors through their windows. Traumatized into muteness after a long, devastating trip from war-torn Syria to the UK, she believes that she…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Tale of Two Omars

  a Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring

  Sharif, Omar, Jr

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  The grandson of actor Omar Sharif shares his struggles with the abuse and homophobia that followed his decision to come out during the Arab Spring, including thousands of death threats and bullying, as well as his journey to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Good Arabs

  Poems

  Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, Eli, 1994-

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  Swinging from post-explosion Beirut to a Montreal balcony in summer, the verse and prose poems in The Good Arabs ground the reader in place, language, and the body. Peeling and rinsing radishes. Dancing as a pre-teen to Nancy Ajram. Being…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I'll Be Strong for You

  a Novel

  Mar'ashī, Nasīm, 1983 or 1984-

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  Follows the lives of three young women in Tehran over the course of two seasons as they pursue their wildly different dreams even as they discover that it may mean breaking with the past and endangering their longstanding friendship.