SWANA Authors

If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

By: Noor Naga

Narrated by: Amin El Gamal & Noor Naga

Length: 5 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, a lush experimental novel about love as a weapon of empire.In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, an Egyptian American woman and a man from the village of Shobrakheit meet at a café in Cairo. He was a photographer of the revolution, but now finds himself unemployed and addicted to cocaine, living... Read more

Honeybee

By: Naomi Shihab Nye

Narrated by: Naomi Shihab Nye

Length: 2 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

“Nye’s sheer joy in communicating, creativity, and caring shine through.”—Kirkus ReviewsA moving and celebratory poetry collection from Young People’s Poet Laureate and National Book Award Finalist Naomi Shihab Nye. This resonant volume explores the similarities we share with the people around us—family, friends, and complete strangers.Honey.... Read more

The Turtle of Michigan

By: Naomi Shihab Nye

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 4 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

The stand-alone companion to National Book Award Finalist and beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s The Turtle of Oman. The Turtle of Michigan is a deft and accessible novel that follows a young boy named Aref as he travels from Muscat, Oman, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and adjusts to a new life and a new school in the United States. A wonderful pick for... Read more

Arab Boy Delivered

By: Paul Aziz Zarou

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

As Michael maneuvers through his working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the school yard and street corner violence of local thugs. With the 1967 Arab-Israeli War fresh in public memory, he passes for Greek or Italian and never summons the courage to explain, exactly,... Read more

Blood Feast

By: Malika Moustadraf

Narrated by: Amin El Gamal & Lameece Issaq

Length: 2 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Malika Moustadraf (1969–2006) is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa. Blood Feast is the complete collection of Moustadraf’s published short fiction: haunting, visceral stories by a master of the genre. A teenage girl suffers through a dystopian rite... Read more

You Truly Assumed

By: Laila Sabreen

Narrated by: Channie Waites, Tamika Katon-Donegal & Lynette ...

Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

After a terrorist attack rocks the country and anti-Islamic sentiment stirs, three Black Muslim girls create a space where they can shatter assumptions and share truths. Sabriya has trained hard for summer ballet auditions, so she’s devastated when everything is canceled after a terrorist attack. She takes solace in writing in her private online... Read more

No Land to Light On

By: Yara Zgheib

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ali Andre Ali & Suehyla El-Attar

Length: 6 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

From the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street comes a “masterful story of tragedy and redemption” (Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses) “written in soul-searing prose” (BookPage, starred review) about a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love on the cusp of their bright future when a travel ban rips them apart on the eve of their son’s... Read more

White on White

By: Aysegül Savas

Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers

Length: 3 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

A "marvelous" (Lauren Groff) and "gentle, mysterious and profound” (Marina Abramović) novel about a woman who has come undone.

A student moves to the city to research Gothic nudes, renting an apartment from a painter, Agnes, who lives in another town with her husband. One day, Agnes arrives in the city and settles into the upstairs studio.

In... Read more

Believe Me

By: Tahereh Mafi

Narrated by: James Fouhey

Length: 4 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

The devastatingly romantic fifth novella in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Shatter Me series, chronicling the events after Imagine Me, the explosive sixth novel.Juliette and Warner fought hard to take down the Reestablishment once and for all. Life in the aftermath isn’t easy, as they and their friends at the Sanctuary work with... Read more

More Than I Love My Life

By: David Grossman

Narrated by: Gilli Messer

Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • A remarkable novel of suffering, love, and healing—the story of three generations of women on an unlikely journey to a Croatian island and a secret that needs to be told—from the internationally best-selling author of To the End of the Land
 
“A magnificent book ... The way Grossman writes... Read more

The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman

By: Melanie Magidow

Narrated by: Dalia Ramahi

Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Published in English for the first time, and the only Arabic epic named for a woman, The Tale of Princess Fatima recounts the thrilling adventures of a legendary medieval warrior universally known throughout the Middle East and long overdue to join world literature's pantheon of female heroes.

A Penguin Classic

A fearsome, sword-slinging heroine... Read more

The Viscount Made Me Do It

By: Diana Quincy

Narrated by: Zara Hampton-Brown

Length: 8 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Diana Quincy returns with the second novel in her Clandestine Affairs series featuring a steamy romance between a working class London bonesetter who is dangerously attracted to her mysterious noble client.  A seduction that could ruin everything... Hanna Zaydan has fought to become London’s finest bonesetter, but her darkly appealing new... Read more

The Tightening Dark

By: Sam Farran & Benjamin Buchholz

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

This riveting memoir follows a Lebanese-Muslim-American and thirty-year US Marine veteran who suffered a six-month ordeal at the hands of a brutal regime in Yemen—and remained loyal to his country through it all. As air strikes carpeted Yemen's capital, Sam Farran was one of only a few Americans in the war-ravaged country. He was there to... Read more

What Strange Paradise

By: Omar El Akkad

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 6 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War—a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child.

"Told from the point of view of two children, on the ground and at sea, the story so astutely... Read more

Alligator and Other Stories

By: Dima Alzayat

Narrated by: Jeed Saddy

Length: 6 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

The award-winning stories in Dima Alzayat's collection, Alligator and Other Stories, are luminous and tender, whether dealing with a woman preforming burial rites for her brother in "Ghusl," or the great-aunt struggling to explain cultural identity to her niece in "Once We Were Syrians."

Alzayat's stories are rich and relatable, chronicling a... Read more

People Like Them

By: Samira Sedira

Narrated by: Susan Nezami

Length: 4 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

A prizewinning, "riveting" (The New York Times Book Review) psychological suspense novel inspired by a true story about a couple in an insular French village whose lives are upended when a family of outsiders moves in.
 
“Icy and chilling . . . In sharply drawn sentences, Sedira summons the beauty of a small French village, and the shocking acts... Read more

Silence Is a Sense

By: Layla AlAmmar

Narrated by: Laura Sawahla

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

"This is not just good storytelling, but a blueprint for survival." —The New York Times Book Review

A transfixing and beautifully rendered novel about a refugee’s escape from civil war—and the healing power of community.

A young woman sits in her apartment, watching the small daily dramas of her neighbors across the way. She is an outsider, a... Read more

The Book of Collateral Damage

By: Sinan Antoon

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Length: 8 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Sinan Antoon returns to the Iraq war in a poetic and provocative tribute to reclaiming memory

Widely-celebrated author Sinan Antoon's fourth and most sophisticated novel follows Nameer, a young Iraqi scholar earning his doctorate at Harvard, who is hired by filmmakers to help document the devastation of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During the... Read more

We Free the Stars

By: Hafsah Faizal

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham & Steve West

Length: 17 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

The second audiobook in the Sands of Arawiya duology by the masterful Hafsah Faizal—the follow-up to the smash New York Times bestselling novel We Hunt the Flame.

Darkness surged in his veins. Power bled from her bones.

The battle on Sharr is over. The Arz has fallen. Altair may be captive, but Zafira, Nasir, and Kifah are bound for Sultan’s Keep,... Read more

The Cat Man of Aleppo

By: Karim Shamsi-Basha & Irene Latham

Narrated by: Ramsey Faragallah

Length: 15 minutes

Abridged: No

The Caldecott Honor-winning true story of Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel, who in the midst of the Syrian Civil War courageously offered safe haven to Aleppo's abandoned cats.
 

Aleppo's city center no longer echoes with the rich, exciting sounds of copper-pot pounding and traditional sword sharpening. His neighborhood is empty--except for the many cats... Read more

This is All Your Fault

By: Aminah Mae Safi

Narrated by: Kyla Garcia & Aminah Mae Safi

Length: 9 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Set over the course of one day, Aminah Mae Safi's This Is All Your Fault is a smart and voice-driven YA novel that follows three young women determined to save their indie bookstore.

Rinn Olivera is finally going to tell her longtime crush AJ that she's in love with him.

Daniella Korres writes poetry for her own account, but nobody knows it's... Read more

Conditional Citizens

By: Laila Lalami

Narrated by: Laila Lalami

Length: 5 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Editors' Choice • Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, L.A. Times

What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize­­–finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American... Read more

Out of Mesopotamia

By: Salar Abdoh

Narrated by: Sean Rohani

Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Saleh Abdoh, the narrator of Out of Mesopotamia, is a middle-aged Iranian journalist who moonlights as a writer for one of Iran's most popular TV shows, but cannot keep himself away from the front lines in neighboring Iraq and Syria. There, the fight against the Islamic State is a proxy war, an existential battle, a declaration of faith, and,... Read more

The Frightened Ones

By: Dima Wannous

Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò

Length: 5 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

**Finalist for the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction**

A timely and haunting novel from an exciting new voice in international literature, set in present-day Syria

In her therapist's waiting room in Damascus, Suleima meets a strange and reticent man named Naseem, and they soon begin a tense affair. But when Naseem, a writer, flees Syria... Read more