OBD Arab American Heritage Month (April)

"The intimate, sweeping tale of one man's restless search for home the world over, as the pendulum of fate swings between loss and life, grief and euphoria, regret and hope All his life, exile has been the shadow stitched to the sole of Sufien's shoe. Born in Palestine on the precipice of 1948's Nakba, Sufien is forced to leave the only home he's ever known, the one on the hill with a beautiful blue door. This is the precise moment when time stops...

"Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA's algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center,...

An exciting debut novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore--from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich--lives which intersect across divides of class, generation, and religion. Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families--the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars--Palestinian immigrants...

"A Palestinian American woman wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter in this searing debut. A uniquely American story told in powerful, evocative prose, The Beauty of Your Face navigates a country growing ever more divided. Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. One morning, a shooter -- radicalized...

From Man Booker International Prize--winning author Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree is a profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency. It presents a mosaic portrait of one young woman's attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish. Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught...

Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship.

"A deeply moving family story about identity, faith, and belonging set in the Muslim immigrant enclave of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn following three siblings coming of age over the course of one Ramadan. It's the holy month of Ramadan, and twin sisters Amira and Lina are about to graduate high school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. On the precipice of adulthood, they plan to embark on a summer of teenage revelry, trying on new identities and testing the limits of...

"In her therapist's waiting room in Damascus, Suleima meets the strange and reticent Nassim and soon the two begin a strained relationship. But when Nassim, a writer, flees Syria for Germany, he gives Suleima the manuscript for his most recent novel, whose protagonist's life bears discomforting similarities to her own. Whose story is it? What is fact and what is fiction? Narrated in alternating chapters by Suleima and the mysterious woman in Nassim's...

Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She's gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets...

"Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love, building a life in the country that brought them together. They'd met in Cambridge, Massachusetts: he, a shell-shocked refugee of a bloody civil war; she, a passionate dreamer who'd come to America years earlier in search of new horizons. Now, they giddily await the birth of their son, a boy whose native language would be freedom and belonging. When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi's...