Two Palestinian teenagers discover secrets that change all they thought they knew about their family histories—and their own futures.
Farida is a talented young painter who recreates European masterpieces under the patronizing eye of a Parisian art dealer. Mazen just arrived in France to hunt for a lost family heirloom. When the two meet during a chance encounter at the Louvre, they discover that both their grandmothers fled Palestine during the Nakba in 1948. Drawn to one another, Mazen and Farida begin to piece together their past, but a shadowy ring of art forgers has other plans for Farida. Will she discover the truth before it’s too late?
Exploring what it means to live in diaspora, Hooda Shawa’s US debut moves from Paris to Haifa, from Aleppo to Tangier, conjuring the jewel tones of the Mediterranean and the bittersweet taste of memory.
Hooda Shawa is Palestinian British author of children’s and young adult literature. She received the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Children’s Literature in 2008 for The Birds’ Journey to Mount Qaf, the Kuwait Children’s Literature Award in 2017 for The Elephant’s Journey, and the Arab Children’s Book Publishers Forum award in 2023 for The Puppeteer. Her recent work includes the graphic novel Banat ‘Ad (co-written with Laila Qaddumi and illustrated by Ashraf Ghori), the graphic novel Gilgamesh’s Skull (illustrated by Michael Jabareen), and The Donkey who Carried the War on her Back, which was selected for 2025 White Ravens List. Hooda is the founder of TAQA Productions, a production company that produces theater and puppet shows in Kuwait, where she lives.
Nour Jaljuli is a translator and poet traversing between the worlds of Arabic and English. She holds an MA in literary translation from the University of East Anglia and is the Arabic translator of Rana Dajani’s Five Scarves. Her English translations have appeared in ArabLit, Middle East Eye, and the 2022 UEA MALT Anthology for which she was also co-editor.
Sawad Hussain is a translator from Arabic whose work has been recognised by English PEN, the Anglo-Omani Society and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, among others. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the 2023 National Translation Award. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library, and the National Centre for Writing. Her most recent translations include Black Foam by Haji Jaber (AmazonCrossing) and What Have You Left Behind by Bushra al-Maqtari (Fitzcarraldo Editions). She was selected to be the Princeton Translator in Residence in 2025. She is based in Cambridge, U.K. and her website is sawadhussain.com.
Nada Esmaeel is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Born and raised in the United States, her work is heavily influenced by her continued exploration and reconnection to her Palestinian heritage, often inspired by and invoking the vibrant colors and geometric motifs of traditional Palestinian tatreez in her artwork. Nada’s personal work focuses on the celebration of repressed cultural history, women, tradition, and connections between land and people.
