#Arab authors

[perfectlyripeclementine]

queer novel masterlist: Palestine edition

Found this list via @evereadssapphic on Instagram.

You Exist Too Much, Zaina Arafat

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.

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. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as "love addiction." In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

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.

Haifa Fragments, Khulud Khamis

As a designer of jewelry, Maisoon wants an ordinary extraordinary life, which isn't easy for a tradition-defying activist and Palestinian citizen of Israel who refuses to be crushed by the feeling that she is an unwelcome guest in the land of her ancestors. She volunteers for the Machsom Watch, an organization that helps children in the Occupied Territories cross the border to receive medical care. Frustrated by her boyfriend Ziyad and her father, who both want her to get on with life and forget those in the Occupied Territories, she lashes out only to discover her father isn't the man she thought he was. Raised a Christian, in a relationship with a Muslim man and enamored with a Palestinian woman from the Occupied Territories, Maisoon must decide her own path.

A Map Of Home, Randa Jarrar

In this fresh, funny, and fearless debut novel, Randa Jarrar chronicles the coming-of-age of Nidali, one of the most unique and irrepressible narrators in contemporary fiction. Born in 1970s Boston to an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, the rebellious Nidali--whose name is a feminization of the word "struggle"--soon moves to a very different life in Kuwait. There the family leads a mildly eccentric middle-class existence until the Iraqi invasion drives them first to Egypt and then to Texas. This critically acclaimed debut novel is set to capture the hearts of everyone who has ever wondered what their own map of home might look like.

The Skin And Its Girl, Sarah Cypher

In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family's ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns vibrantly, permanently cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis' centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of their lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening back to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love.

Decades later, Betty returns to Aunt Nuha's gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she's ever known, or should she follow her heart and the woman she loves, perpetuating her family's cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt's complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family immigrate to the United States. But, as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity, and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us--and wield even the power to restore a broken family. Sarah Cypher is that rare debut novelist who writes with the mastery and flair of a seasoned storyteller.

The Philistine, Leila Marshy

Nadia Eid doesn't know it yet, but she's about to change her life. It's the end of the ‘80s and she hasn’t seen her Palestinian father since he left Montreal years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. But now she’s twenty-five and he’s missing in action, so she takes matters into her own hands. Booking a short vacation from her boring job and Québecois boyfriend, she calls her father from the Nile Hilton in downtown Cairo. But nothing goes as planned and, stumbling around, Nadia wanders into an art gallery where she meets Manal, a young Egyptian artist who becomes first her guide and then her lover. 

Through this unexpected relationship, Nadia rediscovers her roots, her language, and her ambitions, as her father demonstrates the unavoidable destiny of becoming a Philistine – the Arabic word for Palestinian. With Manal’s career poised to take off and her father’s secret life revealed, the First Intifada erupts across the border.

The Twenty-Ninth Year, Hala Alyan

For Hala Alyan, twenty-nine is a year of transformation and upheaval, a year in which the past--memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith--winds itself around the present.

Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife. This collection summons breathtaking chaos, one that seeps into the bones of these odes, the shape of these elegies.

A vivid catalog of heartache, loneliness, love and joy, The Twenty-Ninth Year is an education in looking for home and self in the space between disparate identities.

Between Banat, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali

In Between Banat Mejdulene Bernard Shomali examines homoeroticism and nonnormative sexualities between Arab women in transnational Arab literature, art, and film. Moving from The Thousand and One Nights and the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema to contemporary novels, autobiographical writing, and prints and graphic novels that imagine queer Arab futures, Shomali uses what she calls queer Arab critique to locate queer desire amid heteronormative imperatives. Showing how systems of heteropatriarchy and Arab nationalisms foreclose queer Arab women's futures, she draws on the transliterated term "banat"--the Arabic word for girls--to refer to women, femmes, and nonbinary people who disrupt stereotypical and Orientalist representations of the "Arab woman." By attending to Arab women's narration of desire and identity, queer Arab critique substantiates queer Arab histories while challenging Orientalist and Arab national paradigms that erase queer subjects. In this way, Shomali frames queerness and Arabness as relational and transnational subject formations and contends that prioritizing transnational collectivity over politics of authenticity, respectability, and inclusion can help lead toward queer freedom.

Belladonna, Anbara Salam

Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella.

In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land coveted spots at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Pentila in northern Italy, a prestigious art history school on the grounds of a silent convent. 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 that 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. (I believe this book is by a Palestinian author but not actually set in or about Palestine.)

#read palestine #qlit #queer literature #queer reading list #tbr #palestinian authors #SWANA authors #arab authors #qtpoc writers #qtpoc authors

[oryxified]

I wanna follow more modern Arab and Muslim authors but I don't know how to find them or where to start.

#Arab authors #Arab writers #Muslim authors #Muslim writers #Writing

[mamawasatesttube]

do you think the reason batfam fanon focuses soooo heavily on jason & tim is that they're the two canonically "not confirmed to be anything other than default white" boys

#like dick is romani (or half romani depending on the author) #damian is half arab #steph is a girl #and cass committed the ultimate sin of being both half asian and a girl #rimi talks

[crazysnakey]

Don't forget the reason the U.S. is supporting Israel's genocide of Palestine - hell, 90% of the reason they ever get involved into something in the Middle East is for ulterior purposes regarding oil.

That and the Ben Gurion Canal project, which you can learn more about:

Also this short video explaining the canal's significance and full history in summary:

Simply put,

#free palestine #israel is a genocidal state #israel is a terrorist state #fuck america #fuck israel #comic pic is from persepolis btw #which is an autobiography of the author growing up in iran during the iranian revolution #not to mention how the US destabilized iran bc their democratically elected leader was gonna nationalize its oil for iran #and they put someone who would play ball for them in charge #its always about the oil #EVEN IN THE MIDST OF EVERYONE GOING “THE FUTURE ISNT VIABLE W FOSSIL FUELS” #WE SHOULD BE LOOKING FORWARD FOR USING AND TRANSITIONING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES #BUT THE CAPITALISTIC FUCKS WANT MONEY NOW #AT THE EXPENSE OF HUMAN LIVES #THE LIVES OF ARABS AND BROWN PPL INDIGENOUS TO PALESTINE NOTE THAT #aaaaaaand of course the canal #much easier than dealing w egypt #for both israel and america #israel will be onboard w them and they'll have a way of strengthening their grip on the middle east and world economy #this is honestly disgusting and terrifying #egypt #suez canal

[crimsonbow]

A University degree, four books and hundreds of articles and I still make mistakes when reading. You wrote to me 'Good morning' and I read it as 'I love you'.

Mahmoud Darwish

#crimsonbow #original #original writing #quotes #literature #poetic #author #arabic love poems #classical literature #mahmoud darwish

[imaginedrago-ss]

mayber im just projecting da norms of my own culture w this 1 but ngl a leftist showing 2 much love for their country is always gonna b a sign they live abroad 2 me, look at tgis bro in this paragraph it rlly showed taht the author has lived in los angeles his whole life & is writing for an american audience,

replace islam w orthodox christianity & tgis is all technically true abt me but i wld still never say some shit like tgis, esp not when im describing my personal poltical views lmao. then again i am transgender, right, but yk when a cishet (i assume) author writes abt a rlly conservative country/in tgis case region, & starts stating their own political views, idont think jts 2 unreasonable 2 expect tgem 2 clarify taht they support increased personal freedom/lgbt/etc b4 they can start raving abt how much they love da majority religion in taht place,

#idt da author even disagrees w me politically lol imo he just wrote this part w an islamophobic reader in mind #<which is pretty dumb ngl bro ur book has tje word 'arabs' in da title ppl who think muslims r terrorists r not gonna read this #when we were arabs #bookclub

[mythoughttherapy]

“I throw my passport in the sea, And name you my country. I throw all of my dictionaries in the fire, And name you my language.”

—Nizar Qabbani

#nizar qabbani #author #writer #poet #quotes #booklr #bookstagram #poetry #poem #poetic prose #love #love quotes #book lover #arabic poetry #arab poetry #literature #literature quotes #arabic literature

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

#short story collection #short story collections #palestine + 100 #basma ghalayini #various authors #21st century literature #arabic language literature #palestinian literature #have you read this short fiction? #book polls #completed polls

[chaiaurchaandni]

israeli forces have arrested ahed tamimi in the occupied west bank based on false accusations

the first time she got arrested, she was a teenager and it was because she punched a soldier after he shot her cousin. she was convicted and jailed like most palestinian children tried in israeli military courts. now she's been arrested again on the basis of false allegations.

in the beginning of the russia/ukraine war, her pictures and story were circulated, and people applauded her when they thought she was a ukrainian teen who had fought back against a russian soldier - when palestinians clarified the truth, most of the aforementioned people retracted their support. such double standards. israelis posted the bottom right picture as a 'victory' - clearly, israel's idea of victory is terrorizing civilians in their homes, from the occupied west bank to gaza.

#the alleged post they arrested her for isnt her account and also is google translate version of arabic so obv someone faked it #i read the eng translation and it ac was giving google translate tbh #shoutout to ahed tamimi for being the baddest bitch on the planet #and a big fuck you to young adult fantasy and dystopia authors who romanticize this kinda resistance in their books but #only when a white girl does it. irl many are not aware/supportive of people liek ahed #free palestine #palestine #gaza #long live palestine #glory to the martyrs #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #long live the resistance #death to israel #israeli war crimes #ya fantasy #ya fiction #young adult #the hunger games esp like i doubt sm people would like it v much if katniss was a black girl #young adult books #young adult fiction #young adult fantasy #tropes #dystopia #ya dystopia

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

as someone who read dune in high school and HATED it i love all the dune memes bc people who are enjoying dune still have the exact same takeaways as I did

#me: everyone in this book sucks and the author was high on a combination of mushrooms and some basic knowledge of arabic #everyone else: and it slaps #honestly i should give it a fresh try it's been a long time but. crucially. i don't care to do so.

[miyuecakes]

can your UAE oc allow stuffed toys on Emirates (a sub-subsidiary airline the government owns) to be given out to adults too...I used to get stuffed toys every time I went but they stopped giving it out to me once I started looking like a teenager 😔

#anonymous #ask #aph uae #hws uae #hws united arab emirates #aph united arab emirates #hws mena #hws khaleej #if i remember correctly from one of my assigned readings #the royal families or whatever important people in the khaleej (particularly uae) is pretty accessible to the public #like in order to air out some grievances or suggestions related to domestic policy or whatnot #the author of that reading noted having a casual dinner with a number of important sheikhs in uae as a journalist of all occupations #so i suppose mr uae would be easily accessible to talk to i guess lol #i cant attest to the effectiveness of these norms other than for bahrain which i wrote a 19 page paper on lol #whatever enough rambling im sorry for being a polsci major

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

#just read this guy's book today and #fuck #palestinian writers #palestine #free palestine #palestinian poetry #palestinian people #palestinian history #I feel like stuff like this a good reminder #of how Long this has been going on for #nakba #palestinian authors #arab #arab writers #muslim #muslim writers #arab history #poetry #poetry magazine #anti colonialism #decolonization

[eretzyisrael]

by Stephen M. Flatow

Abbas has made similar outlandish claims on many other occasions. In one 2019 speech at Jalazoun, near Ramallah, he declared: "This land belongs to the people who live on it. It belongs to the Canaanites, who lived here 5,000 years ago. We are the Canaanites!”

Ironically, those darn archaeologists have also documented that the Canaanites, with whom Abbas so closely identifies, practiced child sacrifice. And, of course, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas practice various kinds of child sacrifice of their own, such as using sending children to carry out terrorist attacks and using Arab children as human shields against Israeli counter-terror strikes.

Perhaps the Palestinian Arab leaders could claim to be the spiritual descendants of the Canaanites, even though they are not their literal descendants because the Canaanites were wiped out by Assyria and others.

The Palestinian Arabs and their supporters are naturally frustrated that archaeologists have never found evidence to back up their cause. No evidence of any “Palestinian” kingdoms, no ancient artifacts showing a distinctly “Palestinian” culture or society. That’s because the Arabs in the Land of Israel arrived after Mohammed and began identifying themselves as Palestinians only in the 20th century, and even then, only as a propaganda tactic in their war against the Jews.

No wonder the European Union—which passionately supports the Palestinian cause—is so worried about the archaeologists. Last year, EU officials drew up a document outlining their strategy for helping the PA to claim territory which—in accordance with the Oslo accords—is located in the Israeli controlled region known as Area C.

One part of the EU document referred to the need “to monitor Israeli archaeological digs in Area C.” Why are the EU and the PA anxious about archaeological digs? Because, as Prof. Garfinkel has reminded us, every time archaeologists dig, they find fresh evidence of the Jews’ deep roots in the Holy Land—and no evidence of any “Palestinian” roots at all.

#archaeology #archaeologists #mahmoud abbas #palestinians #european union #palestinian arabs #palestinian authority

[bones-ivy-breath]

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

#the prophet #kahlil gibran #quote #typography #literature #aesthetic #dark academia #light academia #classic academia #original post #lebanese literature #arabic literature #gibran khalil gibran #lebanese authors #arabic authors

[crimsonbow]

And if life is repeated a thousand times, Still you, you and again, you.

Forough Farrokhzad

#crimsonbow #original #english #original writing #quotes #literature #poetic #author #arabic love poems #forough farrokhzad

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

Readalong For Palestine 2: This Arab Is Queer

Introduction

We are all horrified and enraged about the vicious slaughter happening in Gaza especially in Rafah at the moment. No food, no hospitals something that breaks my heart into a million pieces over and over again. I unfortunately don't have the money but have decided instead to set up some readalongs to try combat censorship and help educate those when the media and news has become biased and unreliable. I've been reposting fund raisers but have still felt like this isn't enough so I knew I had to try set up something else. All books used in the Readalongs apart from this novel will be donated to my local library so that hopefully a few more people will be able to pick it up. I know it may seem small but I truly believe one small action can make a difference.

Censorship is becoming a rife problem with what's happening and a ton of people are getting misinformation so I believe the best way to combat that is by reading books from Palestinian Authors and fighting back against Censorship to get Palestinian Voices heard. It might not seem enough but I hope to make a little difference. There's also the issue of pink washing where tons of people are saying Palestinians deserve to be mistreated because it's not Lgtbq+ friendly, I shamefully once fell for this myself. Everyone deserves freedom and in fact that place is not as Lgtbq+ friendly as it claims. So due to this my second Readalong For Palestine will be This Arab Is Queer and Anthology edited by Elias Jahshan a Palestinian author.

This readalong will go through all the way to the beginning of May and I have several discussion boards open. I know that this Anthology is not solely by a Palestinian Author but I still found it important to include as unfortunately there is a stigma that comes from being ARAB. Most ARAB people don't feel safe with their own community but they also don't feel safe with the queer community as we like to strongly assume you can't be both queer and muslim. I believe this will be a key read for those that need to work on their internal racism and biases. I promise you this will a hundred percent be worth reading.

My Aims

My aims for doing these readalongs are pure and not for any malicious reasons. I was one of the people brainwashed by the deadly and brutal narrative that the media is pushing. So because of this I want to fight back and help educate people as there's no justification for Genocide. I also as a queer person want to fight back against the deadly narrative of Pink Washing as I'm sorry nothing justifies taking away life.

So here's all my aims and hopes with these readalongs.

1: Get more books from palestian authors out there.

2: Getting people to talk about what's happening through reading and discussing palestinian content.

3: Fight back against censorship and allow people to access to palestinian media that they want to silence.

Please be assured that these are my own intentions. I hope that for those that want to take part it's there intention as well.

Other Readalongs

This is not the only readalong I will be doing. Minor Detail has come and gone but I will also be doing Readalongs for On Palestine By Noam Chamsky Ilan Pappé and In My Mother's Footsteps By Mona Hajjar Halaby. I picked On Palestine as I've seen the book recommended a lot especially when it comes to educating those who are completely unaware of the severity of what's happening. Its a quick read but also a super important one. I then chose In My Mother's Footsteps as I realised the important of hearing from the child of a Palestinian Refuge and fully learning what it's like. If this goes well I might host some more next year doing a sort of similar thing to the Trans Rights Readathon. It'll depend how uni's going for me though.

Unfortunately I'm not out of the closet yet so this one is being kept quiet on some of my socials but I still hope to get some people involved with each readalong.

Conclusion

The dates for the other two readalongs will be posted in a separate post once confirmed but for now This Arab Is Queer is the next one on the list. I would especially recommend joining this one if you've accidentally been part of the pink washing crowd. Once I've got my hands on this one I'm definitely keeping it as it's a super important book to have as it shows queernesss from a none western lens.

-Melody-

They/Them

#bookworm #bookish #booklover #book tumblr #bookblr #free palestine #palestinian voices #palestinian authors #palestine #palestinian genocide #free gaza #lgtbqia+ #pinkwashing #this arab is queer #storygraph #storygraph readalong #read along