Contemporary authors from the Arab world to add to your TBR

If your reading list has been looking a little too familiar lately, it might be time to look closer to home. Across the region, a new wave of writers is telling stories that move well beyond the narratives traditionally associated with Arab literature, spanning family dramas, historical fiction, romance, mythology, psychological thrillers and surreal, genre-bending worlds.

Whether you’re in the mood for a sweeping historical saga, an intimate family story or something a little stranger, here are some writers and recent works worth adding to your TBR.

NOOR NAGA

Egyptian-Canadian writer and poet

If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English – Noor Naga

Noor Naga has built a literary career across poetry and fiction. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Dubai, she draws on her Egyptian heritage and experiences between the Arab world and North America. Her work often explores migration, class, identity and the complexities of moving between cultures.

Her breakthrough novel, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English (2022), follows an Egyptian-American woman who returns to Cairo after the 2011 revolution and becomes involved with a young Egyptian man. The novel examines class, privilege and cultural identity, while exploring what it means to return to a place that feels both familiar and foreign.

The book won the Graywolf Press Africa Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.

Add to your TBR: If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

HISHAM MATAR

Libyan-British novelist and memoirist

My Friends – Hisham Matar

Hisham Matar’s writing has long centered on memory, family, exile and belonging. Born in New York to Libyan parents, he spent part of his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo before moving to London. His fiction and memoir often examine how personal histories are shaped by displacement and the places people leave behind.

His latest novel, My Friends (2024), focuses on friendship and the experience of three Libyan friends living in exile in Britain. The novel explores the bonds formed between people separated from their homeland, and the ways political events continue to shape their lives. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and was shortlisted for the National Book Award.

Matar’s earlier memoir, The Return, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and remains an essential introduction to his work.

Add to your TBR: My Friends

HALA ALYAN

Palestinian-American novelist and poet

The Arsonists’ City – Hala Alyan

Hala Alyan’s work spans fiction, poetry and memoir, with recurring themes of family, migration, identity and belonging. Born in Illinois and raised between Kuwait, Lebanon and the US, Alyan brings a distinctly diasporic perspective to her writing. She is also a clinical psychologist and professor at NYU.

Her novel The Arsonists’ City (2021) follows a family with ties to Beirut, exploring identity, family relationships and the complicated pull of home and diaspora. The book was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.

Alyan’s 2024 poetry collection, The Moon That Turns You Back, revisits many of the themes found in her fiction, exploring inheritance, family and displacement through poetry. Her 2025 memoir, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, turns inward, weaving together personal history, family and questions of home.

Add to your TBR: The Arsonists’ City

RABIH ALAMEDDINE

Lebanese-American novelist and visual artist

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) – Rabih Alameddine

Rabih Alameddine’s work spans Lebanese history, family, art, migration and storytelling. Born to Lebanese parents in Amman and raised partly in Lebanon, Alameddine later moved to the US after studying in England. His background as an engineer and visual artist also feeds into his interest in art and the creative process.

His most recent novel, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (2025), follows Raja, a Lebanese philosophy teacher, across six decades of family and Lebanese history. The novel won the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction.

For readers new to Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman is another natural starting point. The 2014 novel follows an elderly woman living alone in Beirut who spends her life privately translating novels, using literature and memory to construct a life of her own. It was a National Book Award finalist.

Add to your TBR: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

RAJA ALEM

Saudi Arabian novelist

Bahbel Makkah Multiverse 1945-2009 by Raja Alem

Raja Alem’s fiction draws heavily on place, history and mythology, often blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination. One of Saudi Arabia’s most internationally recognized novelists, she shared the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2011 for The Doves’ Necklace.

Her 2023 novel, Bahbel: Makkah Multiverse 1945–2009, takes an expansive approach to the history of Mecca, bringing together multiple perspectives with mythology, memory and architecture. Rather than using the city simply as a historical setting, Alem makes its transformation across decades an integral part of the novel’s narrative world. The book was shortlisted for the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Add to your TBR: Bahbel: Makkah Multiverse 1945–2009

DOAA IBRAHIM

Egyptian novelist

A Cloud Above My Head – Doaa Ibrahim

For readers looking for something darker, Doaa Ibrahim takes a distinctly psychological approach to contemporary Egyptian fiction, delving into crime and the darker corners of human behavior.

Her 2024 novel, A Cloud Above My Head, follows Noha, a woman whose traumatic childhood eventually leads her into a life as a nurse who kills her patients and those who attempt to become close to her. The story later takes her to Japan, adding another layer to the novel as she encounters a culture and society vastly different from her own. The book was shortlisted for the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Ibrahim’s background is equally unconventional. She studied medicine and surgery before turning to literature, bringing a different perspective to her exploration of psychology and human behavior.

Add to your TBR: A Cloud Above My Head

REEM BASSIOUNEY

Egyptian novelist and linguist

The Halva-Maker The Trilogy of the Fatmids – Reem Bassiouney

Reem Bassiouney’s writing brings together two careers that rarely overlap so closely: novelist and academic. A professor at the American University in Cairo, she specialises in Arabic linguistics, sociolinguistics, language and identity. She earned her doctorate from Oxford and has also taught at both Oxford and Cambridge.

Her fiction frequently explores Egyptian history, language, religion, class and women’s experiences. For readers who enjoy historical fiction but want stories rooted in Egypt’s cultural and linguistic details, Bassiouney’s work offers a rich entry point.

Her recent work, The Halva-Maker: The Trilogy of the Fatimids (2022), offers an expansive portrait of Egypt during the Fatimid era, weaving together architecture, poetry, mythology and human relationships. The trilogy won the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature.

Add to your TBR: The Halva-Maker: The Trilogy of the Fatimids

MOHAMED SAMIR NADA

Egyptian novelist

The Prayer of Anxiety – Mohamed Samir Nada

Mohamed Samir Nada emerged as one of the more closely watched contemporary Egyptian literary voices following the success of The Prayer of Anxiety, which won the 2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Set in an Egyptian village in 1977, the novel begins with a mysterious event and builds an elaborate world of folklore, fantasy and competing versions of reality. A community is led to believe that Egypt won the 1967 war rather than suffered defeat, while a web of rumours, rituals and myths gradually takes hold.

What makes the novel particularly distinctive is its combination of historical fiction, fantasy, and surrealism. The result is a fictional world that uses the language of myth and folklore to explore how communities create and accept their own realities.

Add to your TBR: The Prayer of Anxiety

SAID KHATIBI

Algerian novelist and writer

Said Khatibi is among the contemporary Algerian authors gaining wider international attention through his historical fiction. Writing in Arabic and French, he often looks to Algeria’s history and its relationship with Europe as a foundation for his stories.

His 2022 novel The End of the Sahara was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, while his more recent I Resist the River’s Course won the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Add to your TBR: I Resist the River’s Course