Arab Women

A love letter to Syria and its people, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a speculative novel set amid the Syrian Revolution, burning with the fires of hope, love, and possibility. Perfect for fans of The Book Thief and Salt to the Sea. Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Washington Post 10 Books to Read in March A Marie Claire Best Women’s Fiction of 2019 A Washington Book Review Difficult-To-Put-Down...

Nawal El Saadawi writes out of a powerful sense of the violence and injustice which permeated her society. Her experiences working as a doctor in villages around Egypt, witnessing prostitution, honour killings and sexual abuse, including female circumcision, drove her to give voice to this suffering. She goes on to explore the causes of the situation through a discussion of the historical role of Arab women in religion and literature. Saadawi argues that the veil, polygamy and legal inequality are incompatible with the essence of Islam or any human faith.

Winner of the 2025 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers Shortlisted for the 2025 Toronto Book Award From a queer Muslim woman and artist, a generous, heartfelt and insightful memoir about family and finding the path to one's truest self. The youngest of three daughters, and the only...

A growing number of intrepid Arab and Middle Eastern sahafiyat - female journalists - are working tirelessly to shape nuanced narratives about their changing homelands, often risking their lives on the front lines of war. From sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo to the difficulty of traveling without a male relative in Yemen, their challenges are unique - as are their advantages, such as being able to speak candidly with other women at a Syrian medical clinic or with men on Whatsapp who will go on to become ISIS fighters, rebels, or pro-regime soldiers.

“A vital, inspiring book” (O, The Oprah Magazine)—a ferociously intimate memoir by a devout woman from a modest family in Saudi Arabia who became the unexpected leader of the courageous movement that won Saudi women the right to drive. Manal al-Sharif grew up in Mecca the second daughter...

This powerful and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan; the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and an adventurous mapmaker’s apprentice—“perfectly aligns with the cultural moment” (The...

A portrait in her own words of the female Lawrence of Arabia, the subject of the PBS documentary Letters from Baghdad, voiced by Tilda Swinton, and the major motion picture Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, and Robert Pattinson and directed by Werner...

Half-Iraqi, half-American Sirine is a cook at Nadia's Cafe, which draws the neighborhood's Arab students, expatriates, and exiles. All are hungry for "real true Arab food" and connection to their homes. One is Hanif Al Eyad, a new hire in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the university who fled Iraq as a young man. Sirine and Han fall in love over food: a baklava they make together, delicate lamb dishes, hummus glistening with olive oil....

ARAB humanist is a story of an Arab woman who rebelled against her family while living in America. She wanted to claim her own independence and womanhood but was crippled by her naivety, poverty, and lack of a good social safety net. The intention of this story is not to demonize the Arab or the American culture. From the viewpoint of the author, the poor, especially women, in all cultures are treated badly - just in different ways.

“A moving meditation on motherhood, inter-generational trauma and how surface appearances often obscure a deeper truth. . . . A stunning second novel from a writer who set the bar very high with her first!”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last...

For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or traveled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Only a generation ago, female adolescence as we know it in the West did not exist in the Middle East. There were only children and married women. Today, young Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in order to live independently, to delay marriage, and to pursue professional goals.

Diana Quincy returns with the newest novel in the Clandestine Affairs series with a steamy romance about a half-Arab marquess seeking revenge on—and falling for—London’s most famous mapmaker. The new footman doesn’t seem to know his place… London’s most renowned mapmaker is a woman...

As someone who has a foot in both the Western and Arabic worlds, Amal set out to explore the lives of Arab women both in Australia and the Middle East, travelling to the region and interviewing more than 60 women about feminism, intimacy, love, sex and shame, trauma, war, religion and culture. Beyond Veiled Cliches explores the similarities and differences experienced by these women in their daily lives - work, relationships, home and family life, friendships, the communities they live in and more.

“Fiercely funny, sexy, and culturally resonant.” —People, Best Books of the Month “Shamieh balances her characters’ painful family history and their boisterously funny voices.” —The New Yorker A “wonderfully brash and sparkling” (Oprah Daily, Best Books of the Year) novel...

""A haunting memoir of disarming honesty. . . a remarkable testament to the anguish and the beauty of foreign correspondence.”—Roger Cohen, New York Times Paris bureau chief and author of An Affirming Flame From award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, an unflinching memoir of ambition and...

From Christina Lamb, the coauthor of the bestselling I Am Malala and an award-winning journalist—an essential, groundbreaking examination of how women experience war. In Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, longtime intrepid war correspondent Christina Lamb makes us witness to the lives of women in...

If Arab women were given a voice, what story would they tell? To be a woman is a gift. But that gift does not come without challenges. Historically, women around the globe have fought to be heard. The stories of Arab women in particular have often been veiled in mystery. In Hear Us Speak, Suzy Kanoo lifts the veil. As a CEO, Suzy has enjoyed great success as an Arab businessperson; as a woman, she has witnessed firsthand how Arab legislation and culture has not always kept pace with a world that continues to evolve.

"Jaw-dropping . . . Inspiring . . . A haunting and beautifully composed book . . . It blew my mind." --Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Three Women A fearless exposé of the secrets and lies of women's intimate lives, by the bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny, Adèle...

Las apasionantes biografías de unas fascinantes mujeres que abandonaron el confort de sus mansiones por una vida nómada, y en ciudades como Bagdad, El Cairo, Damasco o Estambul aún se las recuerda.