2025: Book written about/by an author from the Congo, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen
Book recommendations/suggestions for the Read, Seed, Water, Feed 2025 book challenge. Find your next book!
read, seed, water, feed book challenge - about prompt support posts
about prompt support posts
All of the prompt support posts (those that begin with "2025: Book written by...", for example) are organized similar to each other.
Each of these posts was created to support the Read, Seed, Water Feed book challenge on Storygraph that I am hosting. They were also created to support learning outside of the university, collective educational efforts, finding new authors to read, finding books, and more.
For each book challenge prompt, I will share the following sections:
- one or more slides with books I have read or am currently reading that I recommend for the prompt
- a list of additional books from my TBR (to-be-read) list for the prompt
- a text listing of the books that I shared in the slides
I might share one or more of the following in addition, depending on capacity and other factors:
- other supportive text as appropriate, such as countries included
- some quotes, notes, and/or reflections about one or more of the books
- links to other posts on the site where I discuss the books or prompt in more detail
I did many things to minimize hierarchy within these posts, and there will still be some things that might feel odd, such as split galleries of slides, which was a choice made to address current limitations in how the galleries work.
If interested, find bingo cards, more background on the prompts, and other reflections, on the Reading Challenge page and if on Storygraph, join the challenge.
Mostly, my goal for prompt support posts is to share books for each prompt, as suggestions and as examples. This section will be first on every post and may be skipped.
Thank you for reading.
Recommended Books
Books I've read or am currently reading that I recommend for this prompt.
Countries included in this prompt
- Yemen
- Lebanon
- Congo
- Sudan
- Syria
- Palestine
![Book written about/by an author from the Congo, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen. Read, Seed, Water, Feed: A 2025 Reading Challenge on Storygraph. Black background with white and medium purple text. Book covers are shown. Palestine: Poetry: [...]: Poems (2024) by Fady Joudah. Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine (2015) by Remi Kanazi. Rifqa (2021) by Mohammed El-Kurd. Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (2022) by Mosab Abu Toha. Mural (2000) by Mahmoud Darwish.](https://water.ghost.io/content/images/2025/05/rswf2025pr5-p5.jpg)
Read, Seed, Water, Feed 2025 reading challenge prompt and description, showing books recommended that I have read or am currently reading. All recommended books are listed lower in the post in the section “Recommended Books in a List.”
More Books from my TBR List
For some prompts, I’m trying to diversify what I read; for others, deepening my knowledge while also growing my perspective. For some prompts, there are definitely more books on my to-be-read (TBR) list than the ones I share that I have read or am currently reading. Here are some of those books:
Yemen
Poetry
- The Wild Fox of Yemen: Poems (2021) by Threa Almontaser
Short Stories
- They Die Strangers (2001) by Muhammad 'Abd Al-Wali, Translated by Abubaker Bagader and Deborah Aker
Nonfiction
- Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (2020) by Laleh Khalili
Lebanon
Fiction
- No Land to Light On (2022) by Yara Zgheib
- The Girls at 17 Swann Street (2019) by Yara Zgheib
Poetry
- 3arabi Song (2016) by Zeina Hashem Beck
Memoir
- Resistance: My Life for Lebanon (2003) by Souha Bechara, Translated by Gabe Levine
Congo
Poetry
- Child of Congo: where it all began (2025) by Laurène
- Congo, Seen from the Heavens (2023) by Clanga
- Formless: Poetry (2024) by Raïs Neza Boneza
- As Long As Trees Take Root in the Earth: and Other Poems (2021) by Alain Mabanckou, Translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson
Poetry and prose
- Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel (2009) by Alice Walker
Sudan
Historical Fiction
- A Mouth Full of Salt (2024) by Reem Gaafar
Historical Fiction: Young Adult
- A Long Walk to Water (2010) by Linda Sue Park
Poetry: Young Adult
- The Red Pencil (2014) by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Memoir
- Tears Of The Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur (2008) by Halima Bashir
- The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur (2008) by Daoud Hari
Nonfiction
- Slavery in the Sudan: History, Documents, and Commentary (2013) by Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud, Translated by Asma Mohamed and Abdel Halim, Edited by Sharon Barnes
Syria
Memoir
- I Don't Want to Talk about Home: A Migrant’s Search for Belonging (2022) by Suad Aldarra
- Just Five Minutes Nine Years in The Prisons of Syria (1995) by Heba Dabbagh
Nonfiction
- Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War (2016) by Robin Yassin-Kassab, Leila Al-Shami
- Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (2014) edited by Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen & Nawara Mahfoud
Novel
- The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer (2007) by Mustafa Khalifa, translated by Paul Starkey
Short Stories
- Shatila Stories (2018) by Syrian and Palestinian refugees: Omar Khaled Ahmad, Nibal AlAlow, Safa Khaled Algharbawi, Omar Abdellatif Alndaf, Rayan Mohamad Sukkar, Safiya Badran, Fatima Omar Ghazawi, Samih Mahmoud, and Hiba Mareb, Translated by Nashwa Gowanlock
Palestine
Short Stories
- Gaza Writes Back (2014) by Refaat Alareer
- Is This How You Eat a Watermelon? (2022) by Zein El-Amine
- Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories (1963) by Ghassan Kanafani - Palestine
- Out of Time: The Collected Short Stories of Samira Azzam (2022) by Samira Azzam
Poetry
- Blood Orange (2023) by Yaffa As
- The Tiny Journalist (2019) by Naomi Shihab Nye
Poetry and Prose
- If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose (2024) by Refaat Alareer
Novels
- Beside the Sickle Moon (2024) by Thaer Husien
- Salt Houses (2017) by Hala Alyan
- Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) by Sara M Saleh
Nonfiction
- Hamas: From Resistance to Regime (2023, updated edition) by Paola Caridi, translated by Andrea Teti
- One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025) by Omar El Akkad
- Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal (2025) by Mohammed El-Kurd
- Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative (2024) by Isabella Hammad
Memoir
- Cactus Pear For My Beloved: A Family Story from Gaza (2024) by Samah Sabawi
- I Saw Ramallah (1997) by Mourid Barghouti, translated by Ahdaf Soueif
Repeated notes..
The book can be fiction or nonfiction. Authors in the diaspora are included. For books written about a country, where possible, select books written by authors of the country and try to amplify the need for more support & funding for their perspectives to be shared. Authors not of a country are also valid entries.
Recommended Books in a List
As a list, books I've read or am currently reading that I recommend for this prompt:
Yemen
Memoir
Don't Forget Us Here : Lost and Found at Guantánamo (2021) by Mansoor Adayfi
Lebanon
Novella
The River Has Roots (2025) by Amal El-Mohtar
This Is How You Lose the Time War (2019) by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Congo
Nonfiction
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives (2023) by Siddharth Kara
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (2010) by Jason Stearns
King Leopold's Ghost (1998) by Adam Hochschild
Sudan
Poetry
Girls That Never Die (2022) by Safia Elhillo
Home Is Not a Country (2021) by Safia Elhillo
Fiction
Elsewhere, Home (2018) by Leila Aboulela
Ghost Season (2023) by Fatin Abbas
Memoir
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan (2005) by Benjamin Ajak, Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng
Syria
Nonfiction
Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy (2017) by Yassin Al-Haj Saleh
Fiction
The Map of Salt and Stars (2018) by Zeyn Joukhadar
The Thirty Names of Night (2020) by Zeyn Joukhadar
Palestine
Poetry
[...]: Poems (2024) by Fady Joudah
Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine (2015) by Remi Kanazi
Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. (2022) by Noor Hindi
Forest of Noise: Poems (2024) by Mosab Abu Toha
Mural (2000) by Mahmoud Darwish
Rifqa (2021) by Mohammed El-Kurd
State of Siege (2002) by Mahmoud Darwish
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (2022) by Mosab Abu Toha
Nonfiction
Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Internationalism, and Palestine (2023) by Nada Elia
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine (2020) by Rashid Khalidi
Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire (2022) by Jennifer Bing, Mike Merryman, Lotze, Jehad Abusalim
Orientalism (1978) by Edward W. Said
Palestine: A Socialist Introduction (2020) by Sumaya Awad and Brian Bean
Memoirs
My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary as Told to George Hajjar (1973) by Leila Khaled
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir (2022) by Raja Shehadeh
Fiction
The Thorn and the Carnation Part 1 (2004) by Yahya Al-Sinwar
The Thorn and the Carnation Part 2 (2004) by Yahya Al-Sinwar
Get any/all of these books wherever you get your books.
Please support libraries however you can. Find out many ways to get involved in supporting libraries at Libraries for the People.
Please consider purchasing books when they are available from Workshops 4 Gaza's bookstore: [...]: Poems (2024) by Fady Joudah, Forest of Noise (2024) by Mosab Abu Toha, Gaza Writes Back (2014) by Refaat Alareer, If I Must Die (2024) by Refaat Alareer, Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal (2025) by Mohammed El-Kurd, Recognizing the Stranger (2024) by Isabella Hammad, Rifqa (2021) by Mohammed El-Kurd, Salt Houses (2017) by Hala Alyan, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (2022) by Mosab Abu Toha. When I share books that are available for purchase there at the time of posting, I will list them here after the link.
Thank you for reading.
