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
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) Milwaukie Ledding Library
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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,...
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...
Nos richesses
Adimi, Kaouther
Paper Book
In 1935, Edmond Charlot was twenty years old and he returned to Algiers with a single idea in mind, to take example on Adrienne Monnier and his Parisian bookstore. As Charlot knows, his vocation is to give birth, to choose young writers from the Mediterranean, without distinction of language or...
Throne of the Crescent Moon
Ahmed, Saladin.
Paper Book
From Saladin Ahmed, finalist for the Nebula and Campbell Awards, comes one of the year's most anticipated fantasy debuts: THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON, a fantasy adventure with all the magic of The Arabian Nights. The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, home to djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and...
An Unnecessary Woman
Alameddine, Rabih
Other
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST 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...
The wrong end of the telescope
Alameddine, Rabih
Ebook
The Hakawati
Alameddine, Rabih
Paper Book
An astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel that takes us from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of twenty-first-century Lebanon. In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. The city is a...
Narinjah : the bitter orange tree
Alharthi, Jokha
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...
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...
You exist too much
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,...
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...
Huda F are you?
Fahmy, Huda
Ebook
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 . ....
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).  ...
The map of salt and stars
Joukhadar, Zeyn
Paper Book
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 Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker--places today's headlines in the...
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
Other
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...
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...
The Moor's account
Lalami, Laila
Paper Book
In this sweeping historical saga of a young man's journey from successful merchant to slave to triumphant survivor, Laila Lalami has crafted "brilliantly imagined fiction...rewritten to give us something that feels very like the truth" (Salman Rushdie). In 1527, the conquistador Pánfilo...
The return : fathers, sons, and the land in between
Matar, Hisham
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR * 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...
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....
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 Slightest Green
Mustafah, Sahar
Paper Book
American-born nurse Intisar has strived to create a life for herself in Chicago. She was raised by her mother after her father returned to Palestine when she was 9, completely disappearing from her life. Now, 20 years later, she receives an urgent request from him. He is dying and asks her to come...
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 ethnic cleansing of Palestine
Papp e, Ilan
Paper Book
Since the Holocaust, it has been almost impossible to hide large-scale crimes against humanity. In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing...
Palestine
Sacco, Joe
Paper Book
Joe Sacco's breakthrough work of graphic journalism -- a now-established genre almost single handedly invented by Sacco -- won the American Book Award upon its initial release in 1996, and has remained a perennial, essential work for understanding the Palestinian Israeli conflict in the Middle East....
Aladdin
Paper Book
Since its first telling in Paris in 1709, ?Aladdin? has captured the hearts and minds of readers, authors, illustrators, and filmmakers. For just as long, popular adaptations have exoticized the tale, or else reduced it to a rags-to-riches story for children. With this ?smooth, dark, exciting...
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,...
The map of love
Soueif, Ahdaf.
Paper Book
Booker Prize Finalist Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that unfurls across Egypt, England, and the United States over the course of a century. Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist, has fallen in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American...
Dearborn : stories
Zeineddine, Ghassan
Paper Book
Winner of the 2023 Khayrallah Book Prize Finalist for the 2024 CLMP Firecracker Award for Debut Fiction Shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing A Washington Post Best Book of September * Named a Best Book of the Year...
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...

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