Dreams of Ayn Ara — Sara Abou Ghazal

Every chapter belongs to a different member of the Abu Sukkar family, and the family is scattered: Zein al-Abidin in Stockholm, his son Nidal in Paris, the matriarch Zahra holding what is left, Salwa in Beirut digging backwards through Facebook toward Ayn Ara, the Galilee village they came from. The village is invented. That choice does work a real place name could not, because the subject is not one loss but the shape of it, repeated down four generations from a camp in Shatila. Katharine Halls translates, and her record is the reason to trust the English: Rotten Evidence, The Dove's Necklace, a Banipal prize. The specialist room got here first and got it right, which is the job a small press is for. Feminist Press, August 18, 2026, hardcover, $17.95.