ArabishWay

Author Safa Suleiman: Hilwa's Gifts
2025-06-14 11:30 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Register for Location
Author Safa Suleiman will be doing an introduction, reading of the book and Q&A with kiddos.
In Bellevue! Please register for location

Author Event: Hala Alyan w/ Gabrielle Bates
2025-06-19 19:00 - 20:00 | Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, 98122, United States
Hala Alyan w/ Gabrielle Bates
Thursday June 19th, 2025 @ 7:00PM – 8:00 PM

Award-winning Palestinian American poet and novelist Hala Alyan discusses her debut memoir, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, in which Alyan’s experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family’s exile and displacement, all in the name of a new future. She’s joined alongside poet Gabrielle Bates.
To help us anticipate audience size, please RSVP here!
After a decade of yearning for parenthood, years marked by miscarriage after miscarriage, Hala Alyan makes the decision to use a surrogate. In this charged time, she turns to the archetype of the waiting woman—the Scheherazade who tells stories to ensure another dawn—to confront her own narratives of motherhood, love, and inheritance.
As her baby grows in the body of another woman, in another country, Hala finds her own life unraveling—a husband who wants to leave; the cost of past traumas and addictions threatening to resurface; the city of her youth, Beirut, on the brink of crisis. She turns to family stories and communal myths: of grandmothers mapping their lives through Palestine, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon; of eradicated villages and invading armies; of places of refuge that proved only temporary; of men that left and women that stayed; of the contradictions of her own Midwestern childhood, and adolescence in various Arab cities.
Meanwhile, as the baby grows from the size of a poppyseed to a grain of rice, then a lime, and beyond, Hala gathers the stories that are her legacy, setting down the ones that confine, holding close those that liberate. It is emotionally charged, painstaking work, but now the stakes are higher: how to honor ancestors and future generations alike in the midst of displacement? How to impart love for those who are no longer here, for places one can no longer touch?
A stunningly lyrical and brutally honest quest for motherhood, selfhood, and peoplehood, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is a powerful story of unraveling and becoming, of destruction and redemption, and of homelands lost and recreated.
Hala Alyan is the author of the novels Salt Houses—winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize—and The Arsonists’ City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.
Gabrielle Bates‘s poetry collection Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023) was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR and Electric Lit and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. In addition to freelance writing and editing, she works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium; co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon; and serves occasionally as faculty for the University of Washington Rome Center, the Tin House Writers’ Workshops, and Brooklyn Poets. The recipient of support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Artist Trust, her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Believer, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, and elsewhere. www.gabriellebat.es

Cookbook Author Talk: Sami Tamimi - Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from my Palestine!
2025-07-21 18:30 - 20:00 | Book Larder, 4252 Fremont Ave N, Seattle, WA, 98103, United States
Book Larder is thrilled to welcome Sami Tamimi to celebrate his newest book, Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from my Palestine! In this highly anticipated book, Sami—the award winning author of Falastin, Jerusalem and co-founder of Ottolenghi—celebrates the diverse cuisine of Palestine with plant-based and vegetarian recipes for festive meals, breads, desserts, and more. Sami will join us for an author talk and book signing on Monday, July 21st at 6:30pm, and there will be bites from the book to try! Sami will be in conversation with local cooking instructor and longtime friend of the shop Nadia Tommalieh.
Reservations are non-refundable and can include a signed copy of the $37.99 book. Applicable sales tax and a $0.75 transaction fee are also included, as well as a small surcharge towards food costs.
Can’t attend but still want a signed book? Order here for shipping or in-store pickup.
About the book: The first solo cookbook from Ottolenghi co-founder Sami Tamimi, Boustany is a homage to Palestinian food and culture. “Boustany” translates from Arabic as “my garden,” which reflects Sami’s signature style and approach to food: colourful and simple vegetable- and grain-led dishes. Bold, inspiring and ever-evolving, Boustany picks up where Falastin left off, with flavour-packed vegetable-based dishes, including pantry items, midweek easy meals and special to-be-shared dishes. It’s an approach that’s strongly present in Palestinian cuisine, from building your mooneh, or pantry, by preserving seasonal vegetables and herbs to lining the dinner table with a variety of salads and condiments reflective of a love for fresh and vibrant food.
This is how Sami grew up eating – platters of eggplant and chickpeas with a spicy green lemon sauce and fragrant lentil fatteh that always tasted better the next day. These are the 100 vegan and vegetarian dishes he has known, loved, cooked, and shared with friends, including:

Braised eggs with pita bread, tomatoes & za’atar
Smoky chickpeas with cilantro tahini
Crushed butter beans with orange & mint
Couscous fritters with preserved lemon yogurt
Jerusalem sesame bread
Pan-baked tahini, halva & coffee brownie
Labneh & pomegranate ice cream

Boustany is filled with vibrant and lively photographs of everyday meals that invite you into Sami’s home. With recipes for breads, dinner parties, fermenting your own vegetables, and more, Sami shares the cultural fabric of Palestine through his eyes.

Book Launch Event: "Gaza I Spy," by Feda Shtia
2025-07-27 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual
Gaza I Spy is a powerful and poignant photography book in a luxurious coffee table book style, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of children in Gaza amid the ongoing Israel war. Through over 200 striking images, captured from October 2023 to the present, this book documents the resilience, innocence, and strength of Gaza’s youngest residents as they navigate life among the rubble.

Sunday, July 27 Madafeh Program: Book Launch Event: “Gaza I Spy,” by Feda Shtia
Program starts at 12:00 PM US EDT; 19:00 Palestine, 18:00 Europe, UK 17:00.
Please Click Here to register to attend this event via Zoom.

Ken Bebelle and Julia Vee with Sara Hashem ― 'Pearl City'
2025-08-14 19:00 - 20:30 | Third Place Books – Ravenna, 6504 20th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98115, United States
Third Place Books is pleased to welcome Ken Bebelle and Julia Vee to our Ravenna store for a conversation about their new novel, Pearl City ― the dramatic conclusion to their Phoenix Hoard series. They will be joined in conversation by The Jasad Heir author Sara Hashem.
This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

Sara Hashem grew up the eldest in her family in Orange County, California. She spent two of her formative years living in Egypt, where she consumed an ocean’s worth of sugar cane juice and wrote stories during the events of Arab Spring.

Author: Mona Awad
2025-09-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Third Place Books – Lake Forest Park, 17171 Bothell Way NE #A101, Lake Forest Park, WA, 98155, United States
The highly anticipated follow up to the viral sensation Bunny, a brilliantly written, laugh-out-loud funny, dark, and delirious novel set in the Bunny-verse
Third Place Books is proud to welcome back Mona Awad for the release of We Love You, Bunny, a prequel (and sequel) to Awad’s novel Bunny, a finalist for a New England Book Award and currently in development for film with Bad Robot Productions. Mona is joined in conversation by Katie Campbell, reporter and creator of the KUOW Book Club. Tickets are required in advance.

Mona Awad in Conversation With Jeff VanderMeer
2025-09-30 19:00 - 20:00 | Powell Books, 1005 W Burnside St., Portland, OR, 97209, United States
Mona Awad’s We Love You, Bunny (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) is the highly anticipated follow-up to the viral sensation Bunny, a brilliantly written, laugh-out-loud funny, dark, and delirious novel set in the Bunny-verse — a world that Margaret Atwood declared “soooo genius.” In the cult classic novel Bunny, Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely outsider student at a highly selective MFA program in New England, was first ostracized and then seduced by a clique of creepy-sweet rich girls who call themselves “Bunny.” An invitation to the Bunnies’ Smut Salon leads Samantha down a dark rabbit hole (pun intended) into the violently surreal world of their off-campus workshops where monstrous creations are conjured with deadly and wondrous consequences. When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies’ side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers — and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny. Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad. Awad will be joined in conversation by Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach series.

Safa Suleiman with Hilwa's Gifts
2025-10-02 18:30 - 20:00 | Eagle Harbor Books, 157 Winslow Way E., Bainbridge Island, WA, 98110
Join us for an imaginative and enlightening evening with Children’s Author Safa Suleiman presenting her timely picture book Hilwa’s Gift.

Safa Suleiman with Hilwa's Gifts
2025-10-03 14:00 - 16:00 | Suquamish Museum, 6861 NE South St, Suquamish, WA, 98392

'We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza's Youth' — A Community Reading
2026-01-29 19:00 - 20:30 | Third Place Books – Seward Park, 5041 Wilson Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118, United States
Third Place Books welcomes readers Ayah Abdel-Qader, Lubna Alzaroo, Yara Hassan, and Giovanna Khoury, along with We Are Not Numbers mentor Alice Rothchild, for readings from the collection We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth. Penned by young people living in Gaza, these are stories of struggle, loss, hope, resilience, and the ongoing fight to be recognized as human beings.
“We Are Not Numbers is not just a book—it’s my life, their life, and our shared story. I know some of these brave writers; I’ve walked the same streets, felt the same fear, and shared the same dreams under Gaza’s skies. These pages carry the truth of our struggle and the beauty of our humanity. This is Gaza as it truly is, written by those who live it every day.”
— Motaz Azaiza, award-winning Palestinian photojournalist
This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!
