Our Arab
On Longing, Belonging and Hope
$33.29
- Paperback
224 pages
- Release Date
29 September 2026
Summary
Of the many Palestinian Americans in the diaspora, few have direct experiences or memories of their ancestral land, if any at all. So how does one maintain a connection to a home so volatile, ever-shrinking, and nearly unattainable? And how does a child of diaspora raise a child of diaspora, at a time when Palestinians throughout the world-particularly those living in their homeland-are vulnerable to massive violence?
A highly anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed You Exis…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781408773192 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1408773198 |
| Author: | Zaina Arafat |
| Publisher: | John Murray Press |
| Imprint: | Dialogue Books |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 224 |
| Release Date: | 29 September 2026 |
| Dimensions: | 234mm x 153mm |
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Critics Review
A beautiful and thoroughly honest meditation on home as both journey and destination. Amidst a decades-long campaign of erasure, amidst virulent racism and repression, amidst a genocide, Arafat interrogates what it means to be rooted to Palestinian and American identities, memories and ways of being in the world. Every word, every detail of time and place, rings true, and having read these precise, vulnerable and deeply thought-through essays, one is left with the sense that belonging is not some binary state, but rather an ongoing, ever-expansive act. – Omar El Akkad, author of ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THISA stunning collection … at once sharp and deeply lyrical … These essays speak to the quiet negotiations of belonging that shape mothering, love, creative practice between places. Beautifully written and bracingly honest, Our Arab is a meditation on displacement, memory, and the fragile, enduring work of making a life. – Hala Alyan, author of I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I’M HOMEA moving, insightful, intelligent, never didactic meditation on the very idea of home. With humour and affection Zaina Arafat weaves the improbable details of her Palestinian family’s splintered journey post-dispossession … Our Arab is a chronicle of the Palestinian experience that will find resonance with anyone who has ever been in love, taught high school English, mined coal, mothered a child, or indulged the fantasy of permanence. – Kerry Howley, author of BOTTOMS UP AND THE DEVIL LAUGHSArafat brings her singularly compelling voice-compassionate, wry, curious, furious, and saturated with devotion-to the complexities and heartache of Palestinian diasporic life … This is an account of heartbreak that is also full of radiance. – Leslie Jamison, author of SPLINTERS
About The Author
Zaina Arafat
Zaina Arafat is an LGBTQ Arab-American writer. Her debut novel You Exist Too Much won a 2021 Lambda Literary Award and was named Roxane Gay’s favorite book of 2020. Arafat’s stories and essays have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, Harper’s Bazaar, and VICE. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Arab Women/Migrants from the Middle East fellowship at Jack Jones Literary Arts and named a Champion of Pride by The Advocate. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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