Arab American Heritage Month 2025 | Oak Park Public Library

Jan. 30: Library closed for Staff Learning & Engagement Day.

1) Silken gazelles: a novel

Author

Alharthi, Jokha

Description

"From Man Booker International Prize-winning author of Celestial Bodies and Bitter Orange Tree, a new novel about two Omani women whose unbreakable connection is forged as nursing sisters -- a bond considered akin to that of a birth sibling. Raised as sisters, Ghazaala is devastated when her friend Asiya is forced to leave their small mountainside village following a tragic circumstance. It's a separation that haunts her into adulthood, and she never...

2) Sand-catcher

Author

Description

"Four Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked with writing a profile on one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be more than willing to go on record about his experiences, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed by the man and his grandchildren. This living witness to...

3) The Last Man in Paradise

Author

Description

A darkly humorous and emotional homecoming story about a young man reconciling with his estranged family and finding the way back to love, from the author of The Bad Muslim Discount. A decade ago, Azaan, a rebellious teenager with dreams of becoming an actor, was exiled from Redding, California to a religious academy in Egypt by his imam father. His crime? Getting caught kissing Madison, the girlfriend he isn't supposed to have. But while letting...

4) Thyme travellers: an anthology of Palestinian speculative fiction

Description

"Thyme Travellers collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora's best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction as a genre invites a reconfiguring of reality, and here each story is a portal into realms of history, folklore and futures. A man stands on the shore waiting to commune with those who live in the ocean. Pilgrims stretch into the distance, passing a stone cairn with a mysterious light streaming from it. Two Australian women fervently...

5) Huddud's house

Author

Description

How far is love willing to travel in search of its own lost voice. Shadowing the days of Syria's Arab spring, Fadi Azzam's epic novel, Huddud's House--a haunting, contemporary novel rooted in the soil of Damascus, the oldest inhabited city in humanity--is a sprawling tale of love in time of war. Focusing on a quartet of characters torn between leaving and returning to Damascus, it follows intertwining stories of love and violence to their boundaries....

6) A calamity of noble houses

Author

Description

"Tunisia, 1930s. Against the turbulent backdrop of a country in search of its identity, the destinies of two prominent families intertwine: the Ennaifer family, with its rigidly conservative and patriarchal mentality; and the Rassaas, open-minded and avowedly progressive. One terrible night in December 1935, the fortunes of both families are changed forever when Zbaida Ali Rassaa, the young wife of Mohsen Ennaifer, is accused of having a clandestine...

7) Honey hunger

Author

Qāsimī, Zahrān

Description

"Azzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes. Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman's remote mountains and plains, Azzan's troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping,...

8) Beirut =: Bayrkt

Author

Rima, Barrack, 1972-

Description

"Beirut is an intimate and poetic look at a beloved city that is at once autobiographical, documentary, and fantastic in nature. In Rima's hands, Beirut is a labyrinth of alleyways and stories, a theater teeming with revolts, and a cenotaph to buried memories. With Rima and her family serving as our guides, and through chance encounters with incongruous figures (a librarian, a garbage collector--or the city's last storyteller), we discover a city...

9) My friends: a novel

Author

Matar, Hisham, 1970-

Description

"The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything last forever, and, although nothing does, we continue inside that dream. One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been altered forever. Obsessed by the power of those words -- and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa-- Khaled leaves Libya...

10) The queer Arab glossary =: Almuejam alearabiu alkubaraa

Description

"A groundbreaking survey of the language used around queerness in the Arab world, with contributions by leading Arab queer writers, thinkers and activists, The Queer Arab Glossary is a first-of-its-kind survey of the linguistic landscape surrounding queerness in the Arab world. It brings together more than 300 words and terms used to refer to queer people across the spoken Arabic dialects, ranging from the humorous to the harrowing, serious to tongue-in-cheek,...

11) Forest of noise: poems

Author

Abu Toha, Mosab

Description

Mosab Abu Toha, a scholar, librarian, and poet, rose to prominence with his first poetry collection. After completing his master's degree at Syracuse University, he returned to Gaza, where his second work was interrupted by the outbreak of conflict. When the Israeli army bombed his home, destroying a library he had built for his community, Abu Toha and his family fled for safety. Amid the chaos, he continued writing poetry, capturing both the horrors...

12) Sumūd: essays, memoir, fiction, poetry, and art from The Markaz Review : a new Palestinian reader

Description

"The Arabic word sumūd often translates as "steadfastness" or "standing fast." Today, it is a Palestinian cultural value of perseverance and nonviolent resistance in the face of Israeli occupation and genocide. In times of devastation, poetry, literature, and art are the mediums through which oppressed citizens of the world reveal cherished aspects of their existences. Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader expresses the Palestinian spirit and its cultural...

13) The home I worked to make: voices from the new Syrian diaspora

Author

Pearlman, Wendy

Description

"War forced millions of Syrians from their homes. It also forced them to rethink the meaning of home itself. In 2011, Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom. Brutal government repression transformed peaceful protests into one of the most devastating conflicts of our times, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions. The Home I Worked to Make takes Syria's refugee outflow as its point of departure. Based on hundreds of interviews...

14) Zaatari: culinary traditions of the world's largest Syrian refugee camp

Description

"Zaatari covers the food and culture of the Zaatari Refugee Camp, a large Syrian refugee camp in Northern Jordan. Karen E. Fisher has worked at Zaatari with UNHCR for several years, including running a program that involved refugees compiling traditional Syrian recipes into a cookbook. Many of these recipes have now been translated, with Fisher writing accompanying text that introduces Zaatari, discusses daily life in the camp, profiles individual...

15) Keep it zesty: a celebration of Lebanese flavors & culture from Edy's Grocer

Author

Description

Born in a small fishing village in Lebanon, Edy Massih grew up eating and cooking alongside his Teitas (grandmothers), Odette and Jacquo, who taught him the secrets to preparing delicious Lebanese food, including how to roll labneh balls and bind homemade kibbeh by hand. When Edy moved to the United States with his family at age ten, cooking soon became his solace, and from eighteen onward, Edy steadily built his career as a chef and caterer, specializing...

16) A stranger in your own city: travels in the Middle East's long war

Author

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith

Description

"An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war"-- Provided by publisher.

17) Against erasure: a photographic memory of Palestine before the Nakba

Author

Aranguren, Teresa

18) As we exist: a postcolonial autobiography

Author

Harchi, Kaoutar

Description

"In this thoughtful coming-of-age memoir, a young sociologist reflects on her Moroccan immigrant parents, their journey to France, and how growing up an outsider shaped her identity. Imbued with tenderness for her family and a critical view of the challenges facing French North African immigrants, Kaoutar Harchi's probing account illustrates the deeply personal effects of political issues. Mixed with happy memories of her childhood home in eastern...

19) Head above water: reflections on illness

Author

Shammarī, Shahd

Description

"Shahd Alshammari is just eighteen when she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and told by her neurologist that she would not make it past age thirty. Despite what she is told, by thirty, she has become a professor of literature, and has managed to navigate education systems in both Kuwait and the United Kingdom and inspire generations of students. Head above Water is the intimate, philosophical memoir of Shahd Alshammari's life of triumph and...

20) Starstruck: a memoir of astrophysics and finding light in the dark

Author

Nance, Sarafina

Description

"In a beautifully written, science-packed, and inspirational memoir, Egyptian-American astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance shares how she boldly carved out a place in the field of astrophysics, grounding herself in a lifelong love of the stars to face life's inevitable challenges and embrace the unknown"-- Provided by publisher