LONGLISTED FOR THE PALESTINE BOOK AWARD ~ A PALESTINE FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE BOOKSHELF PICK ~ A #1 FAVORITE NONFICTION READ OF 2025 (ENTERPRISE)
“[A] definitive work in the genre of Palestinian memoirs that will not only attract readers of Said or Kanafani, but also fans of Joan Didion, Hisham Matar, Ocean Vuong, or James Baldwin." —The New Arab
“Serhan’s memoir, crafted in magnificent prose . . . is something which is truly cinematic in quality, whose delights and heartbreaks tumble out before the reader as naturally as images fall from a screen . . . utterly vivid and compelling.” —Jhalak Review
A young woman’s search for connection with her estranged father, her family’s past, and the Palestinian homeland she can never visit
Mai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been to Palestine, the country from which her family was expelled in 1948. She is twenty-four years old when one morning she receives a phone call from her estranged father. His health is failing and he might not have long to live, so he asks her to join him in China where he runs a business empire about which Mai knows nothing. Mai agrees to go in the hopes that they will become close, but this strange new country is as unknowable to her as her father. There, the ghosts of the Nakba come to haunt them both. With this grief comes violence, and a tragic death brings a whole new meaning to the word erasure.
In a narrative made rich by its layers of fragmentation, as befitting the splintered and disordered existence of exile over generations, this courageous memoir spans Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai, China and, of course, Palestine. It is filled with bitter tragedy and loss and woven through with an understated humor and much grace.
