Must-Read Fiction by Arab and Arab American Authors

It’s the holy month of Ramadan, and twin sisters Amira and Lina are about to graduate high school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. On the precipice of adulthood, they plan to embark on a summer of teenage revelry, trying on new identities and testing the limits of what they can get away with while still under their parent’s roof. A gorgeously written, intimate family story and a polyphonic portrait of life under the specter of Islamophobia, Between Two Moons challenges the reader to interrogate their own assumptions, asking questions of allegiance to faith, family, and community, and what it means to be a young Muslim in America.

It’s the 1960s, and the air is electric. On the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings — their father is Moroccan, their mother French — search for their place in a newly independent Morocco brimming with both possibility and peril. Leila Slimani draws on her family’s inspiring story to deliver a tense, provocative, page-turning novel about one family’s, and one country’s, coming of age in the face of the seductions of power and privilege.

On a sunny beach on the Italian Riviera, two thirtysomething women, Yvonne and Huda, relax by the sparkling sea. But despite the setting, as their vacation unfolds, their complicated pasts seep through to the idyllic present. Witty and wry, The Occasional Virgin is a poignant and perceptive story of the tumultuous lives and sometimes shocking choices of two women successful in their careers but unlucky in love.

The novels of the Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk, the first in the series, introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, and his three sons. The family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two world wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries.

From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War — a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child. What Strange Paradise is the story of finding your way through a hostile world, but it is also a story of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair — and about the way each of those things can blind us to reality.

In the first book of a visionary fantasy trilogy with its roots in the mythology of Africa and Arabia, three women band together against a cruel empire that divides people by blood. As the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn. Don’t miss out on one of the most anticipated books of 2022!

At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story, follows the lives of a gifted 15-year-old mechanic, Subhi, and 13-year-old Shams, a peasant girl he hopes to marry one day. At first we see the prosperous life of the cosmopolitan city of Jaffa, but as the story evolves, the indiscriminate bombing of the city and the displacements of Palestinian families begin, and we get a fascinating, though dark, close-up of how those who remained survived. This novel is a cinematic account of one of the most dramatic and least known chapters of Palestinian history, a portrait of a city, and a people irrevocably changed.

Man o’ wars are not jellyfish, and River McIntyre is not happy. River doesn’t know why they’re unhappy — though perhaps it has something to do with the way they relate more to captive marine life at the local aquarium than to the people around them. That is until they have a run-in with Indigo “Indy” Waits on the annual class field trip. Face-to-face with an affirmed queer person, River leaps out of the closet and into the shark tank. Literally. What follows is a wrenching journey of self-discovery that spans years and winds through layers of coming out, transition, and top surgery, promising a free life for River with so much more than happiness: A life that’s full of trans joy and true love.

This mesmerizing literary novel is written with all the emotional precision and intimacy that have won Hisham Matar tremendous international recognition. In a voice that is delicately wrought and beautifully tender, he asks: When a loved one disappears, how does that absence shape the lives of those who are left?

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine — Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings — for love, and a place to call home.

Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella. In the summer of 1957, the girls land a coveted spot at a prestigious art history school in northern Italy. There, free of her claustrophobic home and the town that will always see her and her Egyptian mother as outsiders, Bridget discovers she can reinvent herself as anyone she desires…perhaps even someone Isabella could desire in return. But as the glittering year goes on, Bridget begins to suspect Isabella is keeping a secret from her, one that will change the course of their lives forever.

When Rinn, Daniella, and Imogen clock into work at Wild Nights Bookstore on the first day of summer, they’re expecting the hours to drift by the way they always do. Instead, they have to deal with the news that the bookstore is closing. Set over the course of one day, Aminah Mae Safi’s This is All Your Fault is a smart and voice-driven YA novel that follows three young women determined to save their indie bookstore.

Every week, the comic book artist Riad Sattouf has a chat with his friend’s 10-year-old daughter, Esther. She tells him about her life, her family, her school, her friends, her hopes, her dreams, and her fears. And then he creates a one-page comic strip based on what she says. This book is a collection of 156 of those strips following the hilarious, heartbreaking, and all painfully true life of a real girl growing up in Paris.

Published in English for the first time, and the only Arabic epic named for a woman, The Tale of Princess Fatima recounts the thrilling adventures of a legendary medieval warrior universally known throughout the Middle East and long overdue to join world literature’s pantheon of female heroes.

As Michael maneuvers through his working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. Michael grieves with a mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. The people he meets shape him. His mind is a potpourri of his experiences: hatred, kindness, his own sexual awakening. Michael struggles to figure out who this dutiful son of an immigrant family is becoming in a rapidly emerging modern world.

A powerful story 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. With an unforgettably vivid cast of characters and a heart-pounding narrative that is still banned across much of the region, Alaa Al Aswany gives us a deeply human portrait of the Egyptian Revolution, and an impassioned retelling of his country’s turbulent recent history.

Late one spring night in California, Driss Guerraoui — father, husband, business owner, Moroccan immigrant — is hit and killed by a speeding car. The aftermath of his death brings together a diverse cast of characters. As the characters — deeply divided by race, religion, and class — tell their stories, each in their own voice, connections among them emerge. Timely, riveting, and unforgettable, The Other Americans is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.

In her therapist’s waiting room in Damascus, Suleima meets a strange and reticent man named Naseem, and they soon begin a tense affair. But when Naseem, a writer, flees Syria for Germany, he sends Suleima the unfinished manuscript for his novel. To Suleima’s surprise, she and the novel’s protagonist are uncannily similar. As she reads, Suleima’s past overwhelms her and she has no idea what to trust — Naseem’s pages, her own memory, or nothing at all? The Frightened Ones is a boundary-blurring, radical examination of the effects of oppression on one’s sense of identity, the effects of collective trauma, and a moving window into life inside Assad’s Syria.

A prizewinning psychological suspense novel inspired by a true story about a couple in an insular French village whose lives are upended when a family of outsiders moves in.

Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl. From the creator of Yes, I’m Hot In This, this cheeky, hilarious, and honest graphic novel asks the question everyone has to figure out for themselves: Who are you?

From the  acclaimed poet featured on Forbes Africa’s “30 Under 30” list, this powerful novel-in-verse captures one girl, caught between cultures, on an unexpected journey to face the ephemeral girl she might have been. Woven with moments of lyrical beauty, this is a tender meditation on family, belonging, and home.