Our Arab

‘Precise, vulnerable and deeply thought-through . . . One is left with the sense that belonging is not some binary state, but rather an ongoing, ever-expansive act’ Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

‘With humour and affection, Zaina Arafat weaves the improbable details of her Palestinian family’s splintered journey post-dispossession’ Kerry Howley, author of Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

Fewer and fewer Palestinians living in the diaspora have direct experiences of their homeland. So how does one maintain a connection to a land so volatile, ever shrinking, and nearly unattainable? And how can a child of diaspora raise a child of diaspora, at a time when Palestinians throughout the world-particularly those living in their homeland-are more vulnerable than ever to censorship, violence, and erasure?

In essays that move from Nablus to the Appalachian Mountains and from Amman to Manhattan, Zaina Arafat explores how to exist in this state of longing: longing to be elsewhere, longing to return home, and longing to know what home is. Holding many truths at once-about society, identity and family-and flashing with radical compassion, fierce pride, bitter loss and righteous anger, Our Arab is a call to action, a call to love, and an incredibly complex portrait of what it means to be Palestinian today.

‘Beautifully written and bracingly honest, Our Arab is a meditation on displacement, memory, and the fragile, enduring work of making a life’ Hala Alyan, author of I’ll Tell You When I’m Home