Arab American Heritage Month - Books for Adults

National Arab American Heritage Month is a month-long celebration of Arab culture and the contributions of Arab Americans in the United States.

Arab Americans are people who came from or whose ancestors came from one of twenty-two Arab nations in northern Africa or the Middle East. An Arab nation is one where people speak the Arabic language. There are twenty-two Arab nations, and the largest by population include Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. Other Arab nations include Bahrain, the Comoro Islands, Djibouti, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

In 2021, the world’s Arab population was estimated to be about 436 million. Oregon’s Arab American community is one of the fastest growing in the U.S. with more than 31,000 Arab Americans living in Oregon.

To celebrate Arab American Heritage Month, check out one of these recommended books or movies below!

Updated April 24, 2024
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County)Milwaukie Ledding Library
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Paradise now [DVD]
Abu-Assad, Hany
The story of what may be the last 48 hours in the lives of two Palestinian men who have been recruited as suicide bombers. When they are intercepted at the Israeli border, a young woman who discovers their plan causes them to reconsider their actions.
Crescent
Abu-Jaber, Diana.
An Arab-American Chocolat-a sensual blend of food, love and longing.
Life without a recipe : a memoir
Abu-Jaber, Diana.
A "bold, luscious" memoir, "indispensable to anyone trying to forge their own truer path" (Ruth Reichl). On one side, there is Grace: prize-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber's tough, independent sugar-fiend of a German grandmother, wielding a suitcase full of holiday cookies. On the other,...
Against the loveless world : a novel
Abulhawa, Susan
2020 Palestine Book Awards Winner 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist "Susan Abulhawa possesses the heart of a warrior; she looks into the darkest crevices of lives, conflicts, horrendous injustices, and dares to shine light that can illuminate hidden worlds...
The wrong end of the telescope
Alameddine, Rabih
WINNER OF THE 2022 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION By National Book Award and the National Book Critics' Circle Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman, Rabih Alameddine, comes a transporting new novel about an Arab American trans woman's journey among Syrian refugees on...
Salt houses
Alyan, Hala
 Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses follows three generations of a Palestinian family and asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can't go home again. Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award On the eve...
You Exist Too Much A Novel
Arafat, Zaina.
A "provocative and seductive debut" of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine). On a hot day in Bethlehem,...
Bikur ha-Tizmoret The band's visit
Bleiberg, Ehud.
An Egyptian orchestra arrives in Israel to play an important cultural event only to find themselves in the wrong town, where they learn about themselves and each other as they spend the night interacting with the locals.
It won't always be like this : a graphic memoir
Gharib, Malaka
An intimate graphic memoir about an American girl growing up with her Egyptian father's new family, forging unexpected bonds and navigating adolescence in an unfamiliar country-from the award-winning author of I Was Their American Dream. "What a joy it is to read Malaka...
Our women on the ground : essays by Arab women reporting from the Arab world
Hankir, Zahra
Nineteen Arab women journalists speak out about what it's like to report on their changing homelands in this first-of-its-kind essay collection, with a foreword by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour "A stirring, provocative and well-made new anthology . ....
Love is an ex-country : a memoir
Jarrar, Randa
Queer. Muslim. Arab American. A proudly Fat femme. Randa Jarrar is all of these things. In this "exuberant, defiant and introspective" memoir of a cross-country road trip, she explores how to claim joy in an unraveling and hostile America (The New York Times Book Review).  ...
The thirty names of night : a novel
Joukhadar, Zeyn
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction Winner of the ALA Stonewall Book Award--Barbara Gittings Literature Award Named Best Book of the Year by Bustle Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year by The Millions, Electric...
The hundred years' war on Palestine : a history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017
Khalidi, Rashid
A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish...
Conditional citizens : on belonging in America
Lalami, Laila
A New York Times Editors' Choice * Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, L.A. Times What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize­­-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely...
The other Americans
Lalami, Laila
"From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, author of The Moor's Account--a timely and powerful new novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant that is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, all of it informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture. Nora Guerraoui...
The return : fathers, sons, and the land in between
Matar, Hisham
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing--one of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle...
The Cairo trilogy
Maḥfūẓ, Najīb
Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt--Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street--together for the first time in one beautiful hardcover volume. The masterwork of the Nobel Prize-winning author, the three novels...
Man o' war
McCarthy, Cory
A Stonewall Honor Book An achingly honest and frequently hilarious coming-of-age novel about an Arab American trans teen fighting to keep their head above water in a landlocked Midwestern town. Man o' wars are not jellyfish, and River McIntyre is not happy...
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine
Pappé, Ilan.
The book that is providing a storm of controversy, from 'Israel's bravest historian' (John Pilger) Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. 'Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most...
The insult
Sehnaoui, Antoun
In Beirut, a Christian auto mechanic (Adel Karam) and a Palestinian refugee working as a construction foreman (Kamel El Basha) get into an argument that turns violent. Their feud leads to a court case that soon threatens to open up fissures within Lebanon. Directed by Ziad Doueiri. ~ Jack Rodgers,...
Dearborn : stories
Zeineddine, Ghassan
Spanning several decades, Ghassan Zeineddine's debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. In ten tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness,...

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