Please note, these books are currently on my TBR, and I am going off of Internet sentiments about these books to summarise them. If you have suggestions or further observations, please comment, get in touch with me on socials or email me.
Thunderbird, by Sonia Nimr
This book looks like an interesting interpretation of mythos surrounding the phoenix and similar resurrectionalist birds, (if there’s a Palestinian myth here, please share!). The young protagonist needs to travel back and forth in time to recover missing feathers to keep the threads of time together.
Buy through your local retailer or request from your library.
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptomist by Emile Habiby
Published in 1974, this is one of the old guard in the speculative fiction genre, and is described as “an absurdist satire populated by extra-terrestrials from outer space all in the service of destabilizing and breaking with existing historical narratives of the region.”
Buy through your local retailer or request from your library.
Palestine +100 Edited by Basma Ghalayini
This anthology asked Palestinian authors to look to 2048, 100 years after mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948. The 12 stories have a range of interpretations, many of them leaning more dystopian than not.
Buy through your local retailer or request from your library.
Vanished by Ahmed Masoud
Set against the unrest in Palestine, Vanished follows a young boy Omar looking for his father. Some sources cite this has elements of sci-fi, but as I have yet to read it myself, I cannot say for sure, as I haven’t found statements from the author declaring as such.
Buy through your local retailer or request from your library.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, and is a place to start for those who want to support Palestinian voices and enjoy the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Any you would like to see included or would want my thoughts on, please comment.
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