Books from Palestine

Raised in a Palestinian Christian family in San Francisco, Elena Dudum grows up surrounded by her father’s stories of a homeland her grandparents were forced to leave. For years, she resists this inheritance, trying to fit into American life and escape the weight of a history she struggles to claim. But a visit to Palestine brings the realities of occupation, displacement, and her family’s past into sharp focus. Weaving together family memories, archival discoveries, and political reflection, this intimate memoir traces one woman’s journey from estrangement to belonging—and her determination to reclaim a heritage that cannot be erased.

What does it mean to belong to a homeland you may never fully know? In this moving collection of essays, Palestinian-American writer Zaina Arafat explores the complexities of diaspora, inherited memory, and the longing for home. Moving between Nablus, Amman, the Appalachian Mountains, and Manhattan, she weaves together her family’s history, her experiences of identity and motherhood, and the pain of watching Palestine from afar. With tenderness, anger, and sharp insight, Arafat examines what it means to preserve a culture across generations while confronting displacement, erasure, and the shifting meaning of belonging. Our Arab is both an intimate family portrait and a powerful meditation on what it means to be Palestinian today.

In this powerful memoir, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil recounts his detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in March 2025 and the fight against his threatened deportation. A Columbia University graduate student and legal permanent resident, Khalil became a prominent voice in student protests against the war in Gaza. His arrest separated him from his pregnant wife and home in New York, transporting him to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he faced uncertainty about his future and the possibility of being forcibly removed from the country. Drawing on the diary he kept during his imprisonment, Khalil describes the psychological toll of detention, the precarious lives of fellow detainees, and the unexpected solidarity that develops among people deprived of their freedom. He also traces his family’s history of displacement—from Palestine to a refugee camp in Syria—and his own journey through Lebanon to the United States. Combining personal testimony with political reflection, this memoir examines exile, belonging, and the consequences of speaking out against injustice. It asks what freedom and security truly mean when a person’s right to remain at home can be challenged for exercising their right to protest.

Who gets to tell a people’s story—and what happens when the world refuses to listen? In this powerful essay, Isabella Hammad examines how narratives shape our understanding of Palestine, political violence, and the struggle for freedom. Drawing on the work of Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, she explores how literature can challenge dominant perspectives, complicate simplistic political narratives, and make space for experiences that are too often overlooked. The book brings together Hammad’s 2023 Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University and a subsequent afterword written in early 2024, reflecting on the war in Gaza and the urgent struggle over how it is represented. A thoughtful meditation on storytelling, power, and moral responsibility, it asks readers to reconsider not only the stories they hear, but also the voices they may have learned not to recognize.

In We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I, Palestinian writer and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh reflects on his complex relationship with his father, Aziz Shehadeh, a prominent lawyer and advocate for Palestinian rights. Through personal memories, family history, and historical research, Raja reconstructs his father’s life and examines the political convictions that shaped their relationship. Aziz believed in pursuing justice through legal means and sought peaceful solutions to the Palestinian struggle, while his son developed his own understanding of resistance, identity, and belonging. Their differences often created emotional distance, leaving unspoken feelings and misunderstandings between them. Against the backdrop of British rule, the creation of Israel, and the continuing transformation of Palestinian society, Shehadeh explores how political conflict enters even the most intimate family relationships. The memoir is both a tribute to his father and an attempt to understand him more fully, asking whether shared experiences and renewed understanding can bridge the distance between generations. It offers a deeply personal meditation on family, history, reconciliation, and the possibility of connection despite profound differences.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood is a memoir recounting Ibtisam Barakat’s childhood during and after the 1967 Six-Day War. Growing up in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Barakat experiences the fear and confusion of war as her family flees their home, leaving behind the familiar world of her early years. Through the eyes of a young girl, she describes the uncertainty of displacement, the separation of families, and the emotional challenges of growing up amid political conflict. Despite the hardship surrounding her, Barakat discovers refuge in language, reading, and education, gradually finding ways to understand and express her experiences. Written in lyrical, accessible prose, the memoir captures how a child makes sense of violence and loss while holding on to curiosity and hope. It offers an intimate perspective on Palestinian history, exploring the relationship between memory, identity, language, and belonging, and demonstrating how storytelling can become a means of survival and self-discovery.

What happens when you finally return to the homeland you were forced to leave as a child—and discover that it no longer feels like home? More than fifty years after her family fled Jerusalem during the 1948 Nakba, Palestinian-British doctor and writer Ghada Karmi returns to Palestine, hoping to contribute to the struggle for peace and Palestinian statehood. Working with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, she encounters the realities of occupation, military restrictions, political bureaucracy, and a homeland transformed beyond recognition. As she revisits places connected to her childhood and confronts the loss of her family home, Karmi wrestles with a deeply personal question: can exile ever truly end? An intimate memoir of displacement and belonging, Return explores the painful distance between the homeland preserved in memory and the reality of returning to it.

In A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle, Palestinian writer and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh explores the connections between family history, national identity, and the changing political landscape of the Middle East. Inspired by the life of his great-uncle Najib Nassar, a Palestinian journalist who lived during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, Shehadeh traces the journey of a man who witnessed the collapse of an empire and the emergence of a new political order. Moving between historical research, personal reflection, and travel writing, the author examines how the experiences of earlier generations continue to shape contemporary Palestinian life. Through his uncle’s story, Shehadeh reflects on the meaning of belonging, the fragility of historical memory, and the ways political borders transform people’s relationships with their homeland. The book offers an intimate exploration of the past, revealing how an individual’s life can illuminate the wider forces that shape a nation’s history and collective identity.

Palestinian Walks is a lyrical memoir in which Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shehadeh recounts years of walking through the hills and valleys of the West Bank. Through six walks taken over several decades, Shehadeh explores a landscape he has known since childhood, documenting its natural beauty, ancient paths, wildflowers, and rocky hillsides. As he returns to familiar places, he witnesses how expanding settlements, roads, and political restrictions transform the countryside and limit access to land that once felt open and familiar. Combining personal reflection, nature writing, and historical observation, Shehadeh examines the relationship between landscape, memory, and belonging. His walks become both a way of reconnecting with the natural world and a means of understanding the changes reshaping Palestinian life. The book offers an intimate portrait of a threatened environment, revealing how the loss of familiar places can also mean the erosion of cultural memory, personal freedom, and a sense of home.

How do literature, culture, and politics shape the way we understand the world? And whose voices are missing from the stories history tells? The Selected Works of Edward Said brings together key writings from four decades of one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. Edited by Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin, this expanded collection traces Said’s thinking across subjects ranging from colonialism and Palestinian identity to literature, music, media, and the responsibilities of intellectuals. Featuring selections from Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism, and Out of Place, alongside important essays and later writings, the collection offers an overview of Said’s evolving ideas about power, representation, and cultural identity. Essential for understanding Said’s intellectual legacy, this volume reveals how cultural narratives influence political realities—and why questioning dominant perspectives remains vital.

What happens when great artists approach the end of their lives—and begin creating works that refuse to offer comfort, harmony, or easy answers? In On Late Style, Edward W. Said explores the final works of celebrated composers, writers, and artists, including Beethoven, Mozart, Thomas Mann, and Jean Genet. He challenges the assumption that artistic maturity naturally leads to wisdom and reconciliation, arguing instead that some creators produce their most challenging work late in life, embracing contradiction, resistance, and unresolved tensions. Drawing on music, literature, opera, and film, Said examines how artists confront their own mortality while remaining at odds with the cultural expectations of their time. The result is a compelling reflection on creativity, ageing, and the courage to resist conventional ideas of artistic perfection. Published posthumously in 2006, this unfinished final work reflects Said’s own lifelong commitment to intellectual independence and the power of art to challenge established assumptions.

What does it mean to lose your homeland—and spend the rest of your life searching for a place to belong? In this moving memoir, Ghada Karmi recounts her childhood in Jerusalem, her family’s forced displacement during the 1948 Nakba, and their eventual resettlement in England. Growing up between two worlds, she struggles with exile, cultural alienation, and the feeling of being a stranger in a country that is supposed to be home. As she reflects on her childhood and later returns to Palestine, Karmi explores the personal consequences of displacement alongside the political history that shaped her life. Both an intimate family story and a powerful account of Palestinian experience, this memoir examines how the loss of a homeland can shape identity across generations.