Sarah Aziza launches “The Hollow Half” paperback, with Roohi Choudhry
“A poetic and politically potent exploration of survival.” — Publishers Weekly
A brush with death. An ancestral haunting. A century of family secrets. Sarah Aziza’s searing, genre-bending memoir traces three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City — and back.
Join us as we celebrate the paperback release of Sarah Aziza’s critically acclaimed and award-winning debut memoir, The Hollow Half. A reading, conversation, and audience Q&A will be followed by a book signing and reception.
Preorder your paperback copy of The Hollow Half here!
Can’t make it to the event? Preorder at the link above to receive a signed copy for store pickup or shipping. Indicate any personalization requests in the “Instructions and comments” field during checkout.
About the book
- Winner of the Palestine Book Award
- Finalist for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
- Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction
- Longlisted for the James Patterson and Bookshop.org Prize
- Named a Best Book of the Year by Elle, Vulture, BookPage, and Electric Literature
- Named a Best New Book by the San Francisco Chronicle and Elle
- Named a Most Anticipated Book by Ms., Debutiful, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, The Millions, and RAWI
Write or Die Magazine is a must-read book
“You were dead, Sarah, you were dead.” In October 2019, Sarah Aziza, daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, was narrowly saved after being hospitalized for an eating disorder. The doctors revive her body, but it is no simple thing to return to the land of the living. Aziza’s crisis is a rupture that brings both her ancestral and personal past into vivid presence. The hauntings begin in the hospital cafeteria, when a mysterious incident summons the familiar voice of her deceased Palestinian grandmother.
In the months following, as she responds to a series of ghostly dreams, Aziza unearths family secrets that reveal the ways her own trauma and anorexia echo generations of violent Palestinian displacement and erasure—and how her fight to recover builds on a century of defiant survival and love. As she moves towards this legacy, Aziza learns to resist the forces of colonization, denial, and patriarchy both within and outside her.
Weaving timelines, languages, geographies, and genres, The Hollow Half probes the contradictions and contingencies that create “nation” and “history.” Blazing with honesty, urgency, and poetry, this stunning debut memoir is a fearless call to imagine both the self and the world anew.
Time: 6:30 pm EST
Free!
