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 2, 2026
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Theeb
Abu Nowar, Naji
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,"...
An Unnecessary Woman
Alameddine, Rabih
Ebook
A happily misanthropic Middle East divorcee finds refuge in books in a "beautiful and absorbing" novel of late-life crisis ( The New York Times).   Aaliya is a divorced, childless, and reclusively cranky translator in Beirut nurturing doubts about her...
The wrong end of the telescope
Alameddine, Rabih
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2022 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION By National Book Award winner for The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) and National Book Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman comes a transporting new novel about an Arab American trans woman's...
Bitter orange tree : a novel
Alharthi, Jokha
Paper Book
Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award A TIME Best Book of the Year A New Yorker Best Book of the Year An extraordinary novel from a Man Booker International Prize-winning author that follows one young Omani woman as she builds a life for herself in...
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...
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...
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...
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 Washington Post Notable Works of Fiction from 2024 * Booklist Top 10 Debut Novels of 2024 * Ms. Magazine Favorite Books of the Year 2024 * Elle.com The Best...
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...
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 . ....
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...
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...
The hundred years' war on Palestine : a history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017
Khalidi, Rashid
Paper Book
The New York Times Bestseller Palestine Book Award Winner Shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize Named the Best Book of 2020 by Foreign Affairs A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the...
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...
The dream hotel : a novel
Lalami, Laila
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ● READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami--the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a "maestra of literary fiction" (NPR)--comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in...
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...
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...
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...
Palestine
Sacco, Joe.
Ebook
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...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.