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 7, 2025
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) Milwaukie Ledding Library
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Against the loveless world : a novel
Abulhawa, Susan
Paper Book
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...
Aladdin : a new translation
Seale, Yasmine
Paper Book
Long defined by popular film adaptations that have reductively portrayed Aladdin as a simplistic rags-to-riches story for children, this work of dazzling imagination--and occasionally dark themes--finally comes to vibrant new life. "In the capital of one of China's vast and wealthy kingdoms,"...
All-American Muslim girl
Courtney, Nadine Jolie
Paper Book
A Kirkus Best Book of 2019 A 2021 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book Nadine Jolie Courtney's All-American Muslim Girl is a relevant, relatable story of being caught between two worlds, and the struggles and hard-won joys of finding your...
Behind you is the sea : a novel
Darraj, Susan Muaddi
Paper Book
2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST * ANISFIELD-WOLF BOOK AWARD FINALIST "A beautiful portrait of a family reaching for their dreams while holding on to their roots."--Publishers Weekly "Each chapter reads like a small masterpiece."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) An exciting...
Narinjah (The Bitter Orange Tree)
Ḥārithī, Jūkhah.
Paper Book
The eagerly awaited new novel by the winner of the Man Booker International Prize, Narinjah (The Bitter Orange Tree)is an extraordinary tale of one young Omani woman building a life for herself in Britain and reflecting on the relationships that have made her. Zuhur, an Omani student...
Chronicle of a last summer : a novel of Egypt
El Rashidi, Yasmine
Paper Book
A young Egyptian woman recounts her personal and political coming of age in this brilliant debut novel. Cairo, 1984. A blisteringly hot summer. A young girl in a sprawling family house. Her days pass quietly: listening to a mother's phone conversations, looking at the Nile...
Conditional citizens : on belonging in America
Lalami, Laila
Paper Book
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...
Courting Samira : a novel
Awad, Amal
Paper Book
Set in Sydney, Australia, Courting Samira is a charming, big-hearted rom-com about a twenty-seven-year-old Palestinian woman who finds herself in an unexpected love triangle--a sparkling ode to meddling best friends, traditional courtship, The Princess Bride, and, of course, the possibility of...
Dear world : a Syrian girl's story of war and plea for peace
Al Abed, Bana
Paper Book
"A story of love and courage amid brutality and terror, this is the testimony of a child who has endured the unthinkable." --J.K. Rowling "I'm very afraid I will die tonight." --Bana Alabed, Twitter, October 2, 2016 "Stop killing us." --Bana Alabed, Twitter,...
Dearborn : Stories
Zeineddine, Ghassan
Ebook
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,...
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine
Pappé, Ilan.
Paper Book
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 eloquent writer of Palestinian history.' NEW STATESMAN Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were ...
Excellent daughters : the secret lives of young women who are transforming the Arab world
Zoepf, Katherine
Paper Book
For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or travelled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Today, Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in...
The food of Morocco
Wolfert, Paula.
Paper Book
Winner of the James Beard Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award "A cookbook by Paula Wolfert is cause for celebration. Ms. Wolfert may be America's most knowledgeable food person and her books are full of insight, passion and brilliance." --Anthony Dias Blue, CBS Radio, NY<...
The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders
Aziza, Sarah
Paper Book
A brush with death. An ancestral haunting. A century of family secrets. Sarah Aziza's searing, genre-bending memoir traces three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City--and back "You were dead, Sarah, you were dead." In October 2019, Sarah...
Huda F are you?
Fahmy, Huda
Paper Book
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? A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century Huda and her family just moved to...
Huddud's House
Azzam, Fadi/ Alatrash, Ghada (TRN)
Paper Book
How far is love willing to travel in search of its own lost voice? When tyranny unleashes destructive forces that threaten to overwhelm a country, what are the effects on the lives and choices of ordinary humans? When citizens become inhabitants of a land of extremes, what do they do, to whom do...
The hundred years' war on Palestine : a history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017
Khalidi, Rashid
Paper Book
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...
If an Egyptian cannot speak English : a novel
Naga, Noor
Paper Book
Winner of the 2022 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Winner of the 2023 Arab American Book Award for FictionShortlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlisted for the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Shortlisted for the 2022 VCU Cabell First Novelist...
The insult
Sehnaoui, Antoun
DVD
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,...
Life without a recipe : a memoir
Abu-Jaber, Diana
Paper Book
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, Bud: a flamboyant, spice-obsessed Arab father, full of passionate argument. The two could not agree on anything:...
A long walk from Gaza : a novel
Alatawna, Asmaa
Paper Book
In the tradition of Palestinian women writers, Asma Al-Atawna has gifted us a novel that is both personal and political, that exposes both the occupation and the patriarchy. A Long Walk from Gaza is a coming-of-age story that follows its teenage protagonist through her battles with a strict and...
Love is an ex-country : a memoir
Jarrar, Randa
Paper Book
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).  ...
Man o' war
McCarthy, Cory
Paper Book
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 map of love
Soueif, Ahdaf.
Paper Book
A story of two love affairs separated by 100 years. It tells of a widow from colonialist Britain who travels to the Middle East in 1900 where she meets and falls in love with an Egyptian nationalist, and how two of their descendants meet in America in 1997 and try to investigate their past.
The map of salt and stars
Joukhadar, Jennifer Zeynab
Paper Book
"This imaginative but very real look into war-torn Syria is a must." -Booklist (starred review) This rich, moving, and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan; the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart--a modern-day...
A month in Siena
Matar, Hisham
Paper Book
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return comes a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and life.   NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND EVENING STANDARD After finishing...
The other Americans
Lalami, Laila
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME * 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...
Our riches
Adimi, Kaouther
Paper Book
Our Riches celebrates quixotic devotion and the love of books in the person of Edmond Charlot, who at the age of twenty founded Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), the famous Algerian bookstore/publishing house/lending library. He more than fulfilled its motto "by the young, for the young,"...
Our women on the ground : essays by Arab women reporting from the Arab world
Hankir, Zahra
Paper Book
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 . ....
Palestine
Sacco, Joe.
Paper Book
A single volume collection of the landmark novel by Joe Sacco, author of Safe In Goradze. Palestine was his first major comic work of political and historical non-fiction, and was based on several months research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, where he...
Palestine on a plate : memories from my mother's kitchen
Kalla, Joudie
Paper Book
Palestinian food is not just found on the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem with the ka'ak (sesame) bread sellers and stalls selling za'atar chicken and mana'eesh (za'atar and sesame bread), but in the home too; in the kitchens all across the country, where families cook and eat...
The Penguin book of migration literature : departures, arrivals, generations, returns
Ahmad, Dohra
Paper Book
Ahmad's "introduction is fiery and charismatic... This book encompasses the diversity of experience, with beautiful variations and stories that bicker back and forth." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times The first global anthology of migration literature featuring works by...
The return : fathers, sons and the land in between
Matar, Hisham
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2017 PULITZER PRIZE: from Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed...
Salt houses
Alyan, Hala
Paper Book
 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...
Shubeik lubeik
Muh?ammad, Di?na?
Paper Book
* Winner of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation *Eisner Award Nominee * Hugo Award Nominee A brilliantly original debut graphic novel that imagines a fantastical alternate Cairo where wishes really do come true. Shubeik Lubeik--a fairy tale rhyme that means...
The Silence And The Roar A Novel
Sirees, Nihad.
Ebook
The Silence and the Roar takes place in an unnamed Middle Eastern country resembling Syria. The story follows a day in the life of Fathi Chin, an author banned from publishing because he refuses to write propaganda for the ruling government. On this day, the entire country has...
Stealth
Ibra?hi?m, S?un? Alla?h.
Paper Book
Set in the turbulent years before the 1952 revolution that would overthrow King Farouk and bring Gamal Abdel Nasser to power, Stealth -- by Sonallah Ibrahim, one of Egypt's most respected and uncompromising novelists -- is a gripping story seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. A young...
The thirty names of night : a novel
Joukhadar, Zeyn
Paper Book
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...
Throne of the Crescent Moon
Ahmed, Saladin.
Paper Book
Locus Award for Best First Novel winner Hugo Award for Best Novel finalist Nebula Award for Best Novel finalist David Gemmell Morningstar Award finalist "Ahmed is a master storyteller in the grand epic tradition." --N. K. Jemisin
Time of White Horses: A Novel
Nasrallah, Ibrahim
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction Spanning the collapse of Ottoman rule and the British Mandate in Palestine, this is the story of three generations of a defiant family from the Palestinian village of Hadiya before 1948. Through the lives...
The wrong end of the telescope
Alameddine, Rabih
Paper Book
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 Lesbos...
You exist too much : a novel
Arafat, Zaina
Paper Book
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,...

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