About the project
We curated this feminist reading list as a resource for anyone seeking new feminist reading by Palestinian authors. Many Palestine-focused reading lists have been created, but we did not find one centering on feminism.
In consultation with Palestinian authors and publishing professionals, we created a list of recently published books for adult readers in various genres.
We were focused on including resources published within the past five years, although a few older essential reads are also included. This is not a comprehensive list by any means.
We define feminist broadly, but as feminists who create syllabi and reading lists, we work in the context of many feminists overlooking Palestinian work entirely.
We create this resource as an intervention of sorts, given the rising censorship and suppression of Palestinian authors and writers. Our intention is to create a resource for anyone seeking new reading, hosting feminist book clubs, or adding new options to their feminist course syllabi.
We recommend you purchase the books from the Books for Palestine Bookshop.
About us
Gayatri Sethi, PhD
Gayatri Sethi is an educator, writer, and community builder. She teaches and writes about Social Justice, Global Studies, and Comparative Education. She is a learner of decolonization, liberation and abolition. Born in Tanzania and raised in Botswana, she is of Punjabi descent, multilingual, and polycultural. She reflects on these lifelong experiences of identity, immigration, and belonging in her award-winning non-fiction book titled Unbelonging.
She is also an earnest advocate for KidLit community, as a creator of initiatives to build solidarity among diaspora writers for young people. When she is not reading or recommending reads on Instagram as @desibookaunty, she is envisioning traveling, collaborating and gathering for liberation in collectives.
Karla J. Strand, DPhil, MLIS
Karla J. Strand is a librarian, historian, and freelance writer living and working on the ancestral lands of the Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi peoples, also known as Wisconsin. Committed to queer, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial knowledge and praxis, Karla helps facilitate healing through somatic trauma-informed coaching using astrology, tarot, genealogy, and bibliotherapy.
A regular contributor to Ms. Magazine, Karla makes book recommendations in her popular "Reads for the Rest of Us" column online and in "Bookmarks" in the print magazine. She also writes a column focused on tarot, witchcraft, astrology, and wellness for Literary Craft Editorial, the publication of Spirit Bound Press. Karla can be found @karlajstrand on Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky, and Threads.
Susannah Aziz - Consultant
Susannah Aziz, is a third-generation Palestinian-American Muslim who’s a former teacher and freelance writer.
Through reading Islamic children’s literature to her own kids, Aziz often felt humor was missing, so she picked up a pen one day. And she wrote fun, silly stories.
Susannah aims to depict the lives of average Muslim children in her work: fun-loving, enthusiastic, and full of delight. She’s an advocate and fundraiser for the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), which strives to provide support for the health of refugee children living in the Gaza Strip.
Susannah was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and now currently resides in Staten Island with her husband, three children, and their mischievous orange tabby cat, Chickpea.
If you are looking for Palestinian children's literature, be sure to follow Susannah on Instagram @librarycatnyc.
Susan Muaddi Darraj - Consultant
Susan Muaddi Darraj is an award-winning writer of books for adults and children. She won an American Book Award, two Arab American Book Awards, and a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artists Award. In 2018, she was named a USA Artists Ford Fellow.
Susan Muaddi Darraj’s short story collection, A Curious Land: Stories from Home, was named the winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, judged by Jaime Manrique. It also won the 2016 Arab American Book Award, a 2016 American Book Award, and was shortlisted for a Palestine Book Award. Her previous short story collection, The Inheritance of Exile, was published in 2007 by University of Notre Dame Press. For children, she has written numerous YA biographies, as well as the Farah Rocks chapter book series, the first to feature an Arab American protagonist. She was also head writer of the Spotify Original podcast, Arabian Nights, for young listeners.
Her new novel, BEHIND YOU IS THE SEA, will be published in January 2024 by HarperVia.
Susan lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and teaches English and creative writing at Harford Community College and the Johns Hopkins University. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @SusanDarraj.
Hannah Moushabeck - Consultant
Hannah Moushabeck is a second-generation Palestinian American author, editor, and book marketer who was raised in a family of publishers and booksellers in Western Massachusetts and England.
Born in Brooklyn into Interlink Publishing, a family-run independent publishing house, she learned the power of literature at a young age.
Hannah is the author of Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine (Chronicle Books, March 2023).
She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts on the homelands of the Pocumtuc and Nipmuc Nations.
Follow Hannah on Instagram and TikTok @hannahmoushabeck and on Twitter @HMoushabeck.