Ibtisam Azem

What if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day? What would happen next? How would Israelis react? These unsettling questions are posed in Azem's powerfully imaginative novel. Set in contemporary Tel Aviv forty eight hours after Israelis discover all their Palestinian neighbors have vanished, the story unfolds through alternating narrators, Alaa, a young Palestinian man who converses with his dead grandmother in the journal he left behind when he disappeared, and his Jewish neighbor, Ariel, a journalist struggling to understand the traumatic event. Through these perspectives, the novel stages a confrontation between two memories. Ariel is a liberal Zionist who is critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but nevertheless believes in Israel's project and its national myth. Alaa is haunted by his grandmother's memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel's search for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance and his reaction to it intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. The Book of Disappearance grapples with both the memory of loss and the loss of memory for the Palestinians. Presenting a narrative that is often marginalized, Antoon's translation of the critically acclaimed Arabic novel invites English readers into the complex lives of Palestinians living in Israel.

A Novel

The Book of Disappearance

Alaa is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced in Jaffa. His neighbor, Ariel, is a liberal Zionist. Ariel is committed to the project of Israel, but is critical of the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Between Alaa and Ariel, we explore the stories of the people in Jaffa and Tel Aviv
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025

The Book of Disappearances 

سفر الاختفاء

From Booker-longlisted Ibtisam Azem, a haunting odyssey where rest must be stolen at high price, and 'Palestine' is a honeyed defiance on the tongue. ' Sleep thief is what the interrogator called me. I'll never forget that. I would steal a few seconds of sleep so I could remain steadfast before them. The name stuck; I even dreamt about it, the same dream, night after night. I woke up not knowing what to do and drenched in sweat.' The experimental first novel from International Booker-Prize longlisted Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem, The Sleep Thief follows the life of Gharib ("the Stranger") Haifawi as he comes of age, is drawn into resistance, makes friends, meets lovers, pushes back against traditional values, longs to be free of the labels and expectations that burden him, rails against the commodification of suffering, and dreams of a Palestinian identity that will transcend sorrow.

The Sleep Thief

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025, this critically acclaimed Arabic novel invites English readers into the complex lives of Palestinians living in Israel.

Ibtisam Azem

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