Discover a compelling lineup of forthcoming and notable books that illuminate Palestine through multiple lenses.
The below reading suggestions range from vivid works of fiction that convey everyday life and resilience to meticulously researched non-fiction that unpacks history, politics, and culture, to young adult narratives that give voice to a new generation. This diverse list brings together powerful storytelling and essential insight, offering readers of all ages fresh perspectives and deeper understanding of a place and its people.
FICTION
Three Parties by Ziyad Saadi, Penguin Random House, August 2025
In this debut novel by Palestinian Canadian writer, actor and filmmaker Ziyad Saadi, protagonist Firas Dareer plans a major coming-out to his friends, family and colleagues on his twenty-third birthday. Despite his meticulous preparations, chaos ensues, due to his unpredictable family members, a meddling housekeeper, a demanding boss and his own romantic dilemma between two suitors. As unexpected complications threaten to upend his carefully organized day, Firas struggles to maintain control and share his truth. The novel offers a fresh take on Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs. Dalloway, challenges Western coming-out stories and explores the struggles of Palestinian immigrants — all in one transformative day. “Three Parties is such a powerful, funny, brilliantly plotted novel, as beautiful on the line level as it is emotionally complex. With an expert eye, Ziyad Saadi interrogates our often futile attempts to present ourselves to the world on our own terms. This is a subtle, subversive book, full of characters I won’t soon forget, and marking the debut of a sharp, necessary voice in contemporary literature,” writes Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise.
Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah, University of Queensland Press, September 2025
Abdel-Fattah’s latest novel follows Ashraf, an academic facing personal and professional crisis, and Hannah, a young journalist battling racism and family challenges. When a local student is arrested for protesting a university’s links to Israeli weapons manufacturing, both confront difficult choices about speaking out during a time of escalating violence in Gaza. The novel explores the moral costs of silence and the consequences of taking action in academia and the media. Abdel-Fattah recently withdrew from the Bendigo writers’ festival due to concerns about censorship after organizers implemented a code of conduct restricting potentially divisive topics. Her withdrawal led to a wave of support, with 53 participants ultimately pulling out and causing a third of the festival’s program to be cancelled.
Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi, Knopf, March 2026
American Palestinian novelist Hannah Lillith Assadi’s latest book follows Sufien, a Palestinian born during the Nakba, as he is forced to leave his homeland and embark on a lifelong journey across continents. From Kuwait to Italy to New York and finally Arizona, Sufien seeks belonging, love, and purpose while wrestling with loss, exile and memory. The novel traces his friendships, family, dreams and struggles with grief, ultimately portraying a life that is deeply marked by displacement yet illuminated by resilience and hope. The pages of the novel weave in and out of time and space, beginning at the end and ending at the beginning. They are haunting, haunted with grief, struck through, as Dante once wrote, with “the arrow that the bow of exile/shoots first,” and yet they throb with light — not just the light that Sufien sees as he approaches his own end, but the brilliant light of a life lived. “It’s a novel of unearthing, a story of quiet explosions, of memories lost and recovered. It’s urgent and necessary. Read it as an intimate family tale, as mythos, or as history—but read it, read it, read it.” — Rabih Alameddine, author of The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).
A Mask the Color of the Sky by Bassem Khandaqji, translated by Addie Leak, Europa Editions, March 2026
Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and written entirely behind bars, this psychologically rich novel of identity, exile and resistance is from one of Palestine’s most vital literary voices. Bassem Khandaqji, born in 1983 in Nablus, was arrested in 2004 at the age of 21 for his political activities. He continued to write from prison, producing a body of work that has earned wide recognition across the Arab world.
The novel centers on Nur, a Palestinian refugee who assumes an Israeli identity after finding a lost ID card, allowing him to participate in an archaeological dig and experience life on the other side of a divided society. As he navigates his dual identities, the novel explores the psychological toll of occupation and the universal longing for belonging and authenticity.
Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm, Tor Nightfire, September 2026
This debut novel by Palestinian American author Deena Helm follows three generations of Palestinian women determined to put the haunting of their ancestral home to rest. After Nuhad’s death, her granddaughter Marina decides to visit the family’s home in Haifa, a place shrouded in mystery since the Nakba of 1948. As Marina investigates her family’s history, a long-buried spirit of the past begins to haunt both dreams and waking life. She develops breathing problems, prompting her mother, Haifa (named after the city), to intervene despite everyone’s warnings. The story explores intergenerational trauma, secrets, and the lingering effects of displacement. Perfect for fans of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
The Third Bank of the Jordan River by Hussein Barghouthi, translated by Athar Barghouthi, Seagull Books, June 2026
Barghouthi’s novel, written in a meditative stream-of-consciousness style, explores memory, exile and the search for identity. Born in the village of Kobar in Ramallah, Barghouthi draws on tales of his homeland to delve into the pain of displacement, the longing for connection, and the enduring struggle for meaning and freedom.
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NON- FICTION
From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine, by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man and Sarah Leah Whitson, UC Press, September 2025
This slim volume from two of the activists who work at Democracy for the Arab World Now — the organization founded by Saudi American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, before he was murdered by the Saudi regime in 2018 — was published a few months before the final ceasefire in Gaza. Comparing the Israel-Palestine stalemate to British occupation in Ireland and apartheid in South Africa, the book posits that there will have to be a long interregnum before Palestinians and Israelis are emotionally prepared to come together to solve this seemingly intractable conflict. After all, how do you dismantle a settler-colonial state without ridding the indigenous inhabitants of their occupiers? And yet one remembers that in November 1989, the Berlin Wall suddenly came down, taking US intelligence agencies by surprise. Strange things happen in history, and From Apartheid to Democracy offers ideas and solutions rather than pessimism that the conflict will never end. With their practical backgrounds in journalism and human rights law, the co-authors explain that in order to design their “blueprint,” they “first conducted two years of research and investigation, focusing on input from approximately a hundred specialists with vast knowledge and experience in questions about Israel, Palestine, political transition, history, and conflict resolution, the vast majority of them stakeholders in the conflict.” The result is a brisk read that offers roads out of the darkness following Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the creeping Nakba in the West Bank.
The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth, by Andreas Malm, Verso Books, January 2025
Swedish ecologist Andreas Malm posits that Israel’s destruction of Gaza since its October 7 war on Hamas is not only a humanitarian crisis but an environmental nakba. “Far from the first event of its kind,” Malm argues, “the latest devastation Israel has inflicted on Palestine signals a new phase in a long history of colonization and extraction reaching back to the nineteenth century.” Approaching environmental devastation as a friend of the earth and of democratic socialism, Malm explains that “If the destruction of Palestine in at least some sense is the destruction of the earth… the Palestinians are up against Western, bourgeois civilization in toto. So is the rest of propertyless humanity.”
Every Moment is a Life: Gaza in the time of Genocide, edited by Susan Abulhawa, Atria/One Signal Publishers, February 2026
In early 2024, writer and activist Susan Abulhawa entered Gaza twice through Rafah to lead writing workshops for displaced youth at the Culture and Free Thought Association. The participants, uprooted by ongoing Israeli violence and severe loss, faced unsafe conditions and basic shortages. Despite hardship and danger, they gathered to find solace in writing and community. The result was this anthology, featuring powerful essays from Gaza that offer intimate glimpses of daily life and resilience amid genocide. The authors share raw experiences of ordinary moments, revealing courage and hope amid ongoing violence and historic tragedy. “In this writing, we see what the cameras didn’t see, hear what the journalists didn’t say, and remember what the world has forgotten, or has chosen to ignore,” writes Palestinian author Ibrahim Nasrallah, winner of the 2026 Neustadt Prize. For readers of Omar El Akkad, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nathan Thrall, Every Moment is a Life delivers rare, unfiltered portraits of life from the emerging voices struggling to survive in Gaza today. All proceeds from the book will go to the contributors in Gaza and to the Palestine Writes Literature Festival.
Checkpoint 300, Colonial Space in Palestine, Mark Griffiths, University of Minnesota Press September 2025
There have been as many as 900 checkpoints throughout occupied Palestine at any one time, but since many are moving, or so-called “flying,” checkpoints, they could appear anywhere, often when least expected, turning what would normally be a 20-minute journey into an hours-long odyssey. This book focuses on two of the key centers of Palestinian life, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, laying bare Israel’s colonial chokehold on human corridors in what is increasingly an Orwellian reality where anything goes and brutality is the norm.
Menú de Gaza, Familia Haddad, Mikel Ayestaran, Revistas 5W, December 2025
An unusual collaboration between journalist Mikel Ayestaran and the Hammad family of Gaza, including Dalia, Amal, Kayed, Mohamed, and Monjed Hammad, Menú de Gaza is a beautiful and compact book of recipes. Bilingual, in Spanish and English, with several handwritten recipes in Arabic, the book fits in your hand and contains color photos of all the dishes proffered, including such standards as ful, humus, mutabbal and fatayer, along with more complex recipes, such as mulukhiyah and freekeh. The book opens with an essay by Mikel Ayestaran, entitled “Fighting for Survival Meal by Meal.”
The Ancient Cities and Global Trade of Palestine: a 7,000 year history by Nur Masalha, Bloomsbury, May 2026
This book traces 7,000 years of Palestine’s history by highlighting its major trading cities and industries from ancient times to the modern era. Drawing on archaeological discoveries, it showcases Palestine’s role in global trade and the development of local industries such as copper, textiles, wine, glassware, soap and citrus. The study emphasizes the lasting cultural and economic importance of these industries and brands in shaping Palestine’s urban and social life.
Our Arab by Zaina Arafat, Little, Brown & Company, September 2026
Our Arab is Zaina Arafat’s highly anticipated follow-up to her critically acclaimed novel You Exist Too Much. A collection of essays exploring the complexities of Palestinian identity in the diaspora, the book examines themes of longing, belonging and connection to a distant, threatened homeland. Through reflections on society, family, and personal experience, Arafat offers a nuanced portrait of what it means to be Palestinian today.
°YOUNG ADULT FICTION
Velvet Box Letters by Hooda Shawa, translated by Sawad Hussain & Nour Jaluli, Yonder, September 2026
Farida and Mazen, two Arab teens of Palestinian descent, meet at the Louvre. Farida is an artist working under an art dealer, while Mazen seeks to solve a family mystery. Their friendship uncovers a shared history: both their grandmothers became refugees during the Nakba and carried memories and heirlooms into exile. “The debut novel explores how young Palestinians in the diaspora can redefine their stories while reclaiming the legacy of their forebears,” writes the publisher.
