Hala Alyan

From a dazzling new literary voice, a debut novel about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between displacement and home On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the girl's future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia's brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can't escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia's children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities. Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses is a remarkable debut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflict we might think we understand--one that asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can't go home again.

Salt Houses

"The Arsonists' City delivers all the pleasures of a good old-fashioned saga, but in Alyan's hands, one family's tale becomes the story of a nation--Lebanon and Syria, yes, but also the United States. It's the kind of book we are lucky to have."--Rumaan Alam A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home The Nasr family is spread across the globe--Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they've always had their ancestral home in Beirut--a constant touchstone--and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell. The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house. They all have secrets--lost loves, bitter jealousies, abandoned passions, deep-set shame--that distance has helped smother. But in a city smoldering with the legacy of war, an ongoing flow of refugees, religious tension, and political protest, those secrets ignite, imperiling the fragile ties that hold this family together. In a novel teeming with wisdom, warmth, and characters born of remarkable human insight, award-winning author Hala Alyan shows us again that "fiction is often the best filter for the real world around us" (NPR).

The Arsonists' City

Wild, lyrical poems that examine the connections between physical and interior migration, from award-winning Palestinian American poet, novelist, and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses.

The Twenty-Ninth Year

From the author of The Arsonists’ City and The Twenty-Ninth Year, a new collection of poetry that traces the fragmentation of memory, archive, and family–past, present, future–in the face of displacement and war. A diaspora of memories runs through this poetry collection—a multiplicity of voices, bodies, and houses hold archival material for one another, tracing paths between Brooklyn, Beirut, and Jerusalem. Boundaries and borders blur between space and time and poetic form—small banal moments of daily life live within geopolitical brutalities and, vice versa, the desire for stability lives in familiarity with displacement. These poems take stock of who and what can displace you from home and from your own body—and, conversely, the kind of resilience, tenacity, and love that can bring you back into yourself and into the context of past and future generations. Hala Alyan asks, What stops you from transforming into someone or something else? When you have lived a life in flux, how do you find rest?

Poems

The Moon That Turns You Back

Moon That Turns You Back

You're Not a Girl in a Movie

Häuser aus Sand

"In Islam, hijra refers to the Prophet Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina; the term has come to mean any exodus. Bearing witness to the testimony of immigration--not only the poet's but also that of her family--the poems in the collection create a dialogue between the two worlds of migration"--

Hijra

Zeina Hashem Beck

This landmark anthology gathers together almost two-hundred vibrant English-language love poems by living writers of Arab descent. We Call to the Eye and to the Night is an amalgam of eminent poets —Hayan Charara, Leila Chatti, Nathalie Handal, Fady Joudah, and Naomi Shihab Nye, among them—and those who have just begun to make their mark. These poets are descended from diverse countries and represent a breathtaking intersection of voices, experiences, and perspectives. Divided into whimsical sections (named for lines from poems they include), the anthology features an evocative array of erotic and romantic selections, as well as ones portraying love of family, friends, heritage, and homeland. Exquisitely curated and introduced by acclaimed authors Hala Alyan and Zeina Hashem Beck, We Call to the Eye and to the Night is at once sexy, sensuous, adventurous, and nostalgic—a treasury of love emanating from the Arab world and its diaspora.

Love Poems by Writers of Arab Descent

We Call to the Eye and to the Night

Bhanu Kapil

Jihyun Yun

Larissa Lai

Franny Choi

Victoria Chang

Monica Sok

Devi Laskar

Karen An-hwei Lee

Sun Yung Shin

Marilyn Chin

Ryka Aoki

Diana Khoi Nguyen

Jane Wong

Nancy Chen Long

Eileen Tabios

Carlina Duan

Michelle Lee

Doyali Islam

Jessica Abughattas

Dena Igusti

Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

Paul Tran

Cynthia Dewi Oka

Mary-Kim Arnold

Mia Ayumi Malhotra

Maw Shein Win

Do Nguyen Mai

Shazia Hafiz Ramji

Su Cho

Jenna Le

Su Fang Ng

Isabella Wang

Amy Lam

Angie Sijun Lou

Nellie Wong

Torsa Ghosal

Kailee Pedersen

Manahil Bandukwala

Allison Albino

Sarah Audsley

Hajjar Baban

Maria Isabelle Carlos

Catherine Chen

Jennifer Cheng

Debra Kang Dean

Anuja Ghimire

Kate Hao

Mai-Linh Hong

C. X. Hua

Resi Ibanez

Ann Inoshita

Maya Khosla

Maddie Kim

Juliet Kono

Hyejung Kook

Iria Law

Mari L 'Esperance

Pacyinz Lyfoung

Meher Manda

Aurora Masum-Javed

Lani Montreal

Amy Patel

Yamini Pathak

Michelle Penaloza

Angela Penaredondo

Megan Pinto

Preeti Kaur Rajpal

Swati Rana

Karen Rigby

Raena Shirali

C. E. Shue

Kristen Sze-Tu

Lehua Taitano

Alaisha Verdeflor

Kara Kai Wang

Annette Wong

Shelly Wong

Jessica Yuan

They Rise Like A Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets is a collection of hundreds of contemporary poems by both established and emerging Asian American Women Poets.

An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets

They Rise Like a Wave

Joe Sacco

Eileen Myles

Bao Phi

Naomi Shihab Nye

Ahdaf Soueif

Natalie Diaz

Hisham Matar

Yazan Khalili

George Abraham

Najwan Darwish

Sahar Mustafah

Naomi Wallace

Kevin Coval

Marc Lamont Hill

Khaled Mattawa

Jehan Bseiso

Nathalie Handal

Fargo Tbakhi

Ed Bok Lee

Donal O'Kelly

Fady Joudah

Zaina Alsous

Najla Said

Ismail Khalidi

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Lina AlSharif

Janan Alexandra

Zeina Azzam

Bryonn Bain

Summer Farah

Mandy Shunnarah

Marking seventy years of displacement and occupation in Palestine, Mizna presents The Palestine Issue, centering the Palestinian struggle for liberation and the rich literature it has spurred, guest edited by playwright and poet Ismail Khalidi. Acclaimed authors engage with seven decades of resilience and creativity in the face of catastrophe, sharing work that combats erasure by remembering, as well as by imagining possible (and impossible) futures.

The Palestine Issue

Mizna

Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Wandering from Detroit to Haifa, Tripoli to Brooklyn, the poems of FOUR CITIES reveal the underbelly of cities, bearing witness to narratives of love, occupation and faith. These testimonies are harvested from displaced landscapes, histories and languages, revealing the unsettled lives of immigrants. Using urgent, haunting language, Alyan evokes the unlikely backdrop of Palestinian bazaars and Midwestern junkyards, policed checkpoints and boisterous nightclubs. A Lebanese village burns while lovers kiss in Paris. A traveler unpacks her grief in the homes of strangers. This lyrical collection captures the interplay between adopted and imposed homes, the poignant legacy of exile.

Four Cities

In a phenomenal collection of poems by a truly inspired and original emerging poetic voice, Alyan, a Palestinian-American, writes relentlessly, with a deep passion and intense intimacy, tracing lines of global issues into personal spaces.

Hala Alyan

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