Palestinian Books to Read This Autumn: Novels, Memoirs and Poetry

Palestinian literature is one of the richest ways to understand what it means to lose a homeland and keep it alive in memory. From classic novellas to award-winning memoirs, these books bring voices and places to life in a way no report can.

All of them are available in English from UK bookshops and libraries.

Classics to start with

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Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani (1963) is a short, devastating novella about three refugees trying to reach Kuwait, and one of the most important works of modern Arabic fiction. I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti is a poet's memoir of returning home after thirty years of exile.

Novels

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa follows four generations of one family from 1948 onwards. Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, a finalist for the US National Book Award for translated literature, is a short, haunting novel that links a crime in 1949 to a woman's search decades later. The Parisian by Isabella Hammad is a sweeping historical novel set in Nablus and France.

Memoir and essays

Palestinian Walks by Raja Shehadeh, winner of the Orwell Prize in 2008, follows the writer's hikes across the hills around Ramallah and shows how the landscape itself has been changed by occupation.

New voices from Gaza

Gaza Writes Back, edited by the writer and teacher Refaat Alareer, collects short stories by young writers from Gaza. Alareer was killed in an Israeli strike in December 2023, and his work has since reached readers around the world.

Many of these titles pair perfectly with a warm jumper and a quiet evening. For more on Palestinian culture, see our guide to the keffiyeh pattern.