The Beauty of Your Face
United States

The Beauty of Your Face

by Sahar Mustafah

Identity & Belonging Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Contemporary Fiction Fiction 2020

Summary

On an ordinary morning in suburban Chicago, a masked gunman storms an Islamic school, forcing principal Afaf Rahman to confront the memories she has spent a lifetime trying to escape. As she guides her students toward safety, her thoughts return to her childhood as the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, her family’s struggles with faith and belonging, and the devastating events that shaped her life. From her father’s growing disillusionment with America to her sister’s rebellion and her own complicated relationship with Islam, Afaf’s story unfolds across decades of love, loss, and searching. Against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia and cultural alienation, The Beauty of Your Face explores what it means to hold on to faith when the world seems determined to turn you into an outsider. Intimate and deeply moving, it is a novel about sisterhood, resilience, and the possibility of finding beauty and belonging in the most unexpected places.

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Country
United States
North America
About the author
Sahar Mustafah
Sahar Mustafah

Sahar Mustafah is a Palestinian American novelist and educator whose writing explores heritage, identity, faith, and the experiences of Palestinians living between cultures. The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, she draws on her family’s history and cultural inheritance to examine questions of belonging, displacement, and the lasting effects of political conflict. She earned an MFA in Fiction from Columbia College Chicago, where she was a Follett Graduate Scholar, and lives and teaches outside Chicago. Her debut novel, The Beauty of Your Face (2020), received widespread critical acclaim and was named a notable book of the year by The New York Times Book Review. It was also a finalist for the Palestine Book Awards. Her short fiction has earned significant recognition: Star of Bethlehem received the Lawrence Prize for Best Fiction in 2022, while Tree of Life won the Robert J. DeMott Prize in 2023. Her second novel, The Slightest Green (2025), continues her exploration of Palestinian history, family memory, and the enduring emotional ties between people and their homeland.

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Details
Published
2020
Author
Sahar Mustafah