Lilas Taha

Palestine Syria United States

About

Lilas Taha is a Palestinian-Syrian American novelist, born in Kuwait to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother. She immigrated to the United States in 1990 following the Gulf War. Her background and family history have deeply influenced her writing, particularly her interest in displacement, identity, and the experiences of Palestinians living in exile. Trained as an electrical engineer, Taha holds a master’s degree in Human Factors Engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Alongside her writing, she has worked as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse, bringing her professional commitment to social issues into her fiction. Her previous novels include Shadows of Damascus (2014), Bitter Almonds (2016), and Lost in Thyme (2019), which won a Best Book Award from American Book Fest. Her stories often explore the resilience of ordinary people navigating political upheaval, family struggles, and cultural displacement. Published in 2025, Waseem continues her exploration of Palestinian identity and the enduring human desire for love, dignity, and home.

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Waseem

What does it mean to call a place home when the land you long for has always been out of reach? In a crowded Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Waseem lives with a disability that leaves him largely unable to speak or walk. Much of his world unfolds through a small window, until Ameena, his spirited childhood friend, brings books into his life. Their friendship grows into a deep bond shaped by shared dreams, unspoken affection, and a longing to visit their ancestral homeland, Palestine. As the years pass, Waseem must confront the limits imposed on him by his body, his circumstances, and a world that often underestimates him. Yet his story is not defined by hardship alone. Humour, tenderness, and an enduring hunger for knowledge illuminate the everyday lives of people whose hopes extend far beyond the confines of the camp. With warmth and emotional depth, Lilas Taha explores love, disability, exile, and the search for belonging. Waseem is a moving portrait of a young man determined to claim his own future while holding on to the homeland he has never known.

2025 Lebanon Palestine

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