With this year’s edition of the SWANA Book Quarter featuring a ravenous creature as its emblem, the choice of books will reflect its hunger – unapologetic voices reflecting on the monstrosities of the last years in particular. Anger, hunger, and a desire for a new world merging with the mourning of the old, conflicted characters and unreliable narrators. These books reflect on the act of being ferociously alive on Earth, an act of near impossible defiance.

While focusing on literature coming from all across Southwest Asia and North Africa, highlights will be spanning all genres to encompass the multitude of voices. For three months, books (forthcoming and published) will be presented under this category – click HERE to find all blog posts associated. (Please note that this category will only start filling from October onwards)

Many books taking the focus will be authored by those often marginalized in the publishing industry, but Palestinian fiction (due to nothing other than personal preference and strong presence in current publishing) will be at its center piece.

Still, I want to challenge myself to highlight books frequently left at the sidelines – think, Palestinian diasporic memoir that has nothing to do with the nearly hegemonic portrayal of Palestinian life centered around life in the USA. While in itself this portrayal is necessary to portrait Palestinian life in the USA, it has begun to seemingly represent Palestinian diasporic life as such, invisibilizing different contexts and communities.

Being ferociously alive on Earth, these books and narrators are meant to rattle what is left of a world comfortable only for some.

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