SWANA Authors

Mother of Strangers

By: Suad Amiry

Narrated by: Amin El Gamal & Lameece Issaq

Length: 7 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR from NPR  • Set in Jaffa in between 1947 and 1951, this “fable-like historical novel of young love ... darkly humorous and touching” (Oprah Daily) is based on a true story during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people.

Based on the true story of two Jaffa teenagers, Mother of Strangers... Read more

These Infinite Threads

By: Tahereh Mafi

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 11 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Instant #1 New York Times bestseller! A stunning romantasy full of explosive magic, searing romance, and heartbreaking betrayal, this breathtaking sequel to This Woven Kingdom is from the award-winning and bestselling author of the Shatter Me series and is perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo, and Sabaa Tahir.With the heat of a kiss,... Read more

Man of My Time

By: Dalia Sofer

Narrated by: Navid Navid

Length: 11 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Set in Iran and New York City, Dalia Sofer's second novel, Man of My Time, tells the story of Hamid Mozaffarian, who is as alienated from himself as he is from the world. After decades of ambivalence about his work for the Iranian, Hamid travels to New York, where he encounters his estranged family and retrieves the ashes of his father - who was... Read more

The Path to Awakening

By: Shamar Rinpoche

Narrated by: Leslie Howard

Length: 3 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Mind training is a comprehensive practice that is suitable for all types of students. It contains the entire path and does not depend on a person's background. Mind training nurses and cultivates the Buddha Nature—that pure seed of awakening that is at the very heart of every sentient being. It has the power to transform even egotistical... Read more

Theravada Buddhism, Simple Guides

By: Diana St. Ruth & Richard St. Ruth

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 2 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

This book will help you appreciate the timeless wisdom of the oldest form of Buddhism in existence, understand what it means to be a Buddhist, recognize the key practices and traditions of Theravada Buddhism, and avoid faux pas in conversation—both in traveling and personal relationships. Access the world's religions through this entry in this... Read more

Shinto, Simple Guides

By: Ian Reader

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 3 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

This book will help you appreciate the significance of Japan's own religion in everyday life, recognize the key traditions and festivals of the Shinto year, understand what you will see at Shinto shrines and in Shinto rituals, and gain insights into the controversies surrounding Shinto politics and nationalism. Access the world's religions... Read more

Stars Between the Sun and Moon

By: Lucia Jang & Susan McClelland

Narrated by: Janet Song

Length: 7 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Born in 1970s North Korea, Lucia Jang grew up in a typical household - her parents worked in the factories and the family scraped by on rations. Nightly, she bowed to her photo of Kim Il-Sung. It was the beginning of a chaotic period with a decade-long famine. Jang married an abusive man who sold their baby. She left him and went home to help... Read more

The Arabic Quilt

By: Aya Khalil

Narrated by: Full Cast

Length: 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Kanzi's family has moved from Egypt to America, and on her first day in a new school, what she wants more than anything is to fit in. Maybe that's why she forgets to take the kofta sandwich her mother has made for her lunch, but that backfires when Mama shows up at school with the sandwich. Mama wears a hijab and calls her daughter Habibti (dear... Read more

Halal Sex

By: Sheima Benembarek

Narrated by: Sheima Benembarek & Mona Eltahawy

Length: 5 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE QWF CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY FIRST BOOK PRIZE*

An unprecedented glimpse into the sex lives of female and gender-expansive Muslims living across Canada and the United States.

In the Muslim world, sex is permissible (or halal) only within the confines of marriage. Outside of wedlock, the act is considered haram, a sin of the faith.... Read more

Yalo

By: Elias Khoury

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 11 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Elias Khoury’s novel Yalo propels us into a fantastic universe of skewed reality that leaves us breathless to the last sentence.We follow the path of a young man, Yalo, who is growing up like a stray dog on the streets of Beirut during the long years of the Lebanese civil war. Living with his mother, who “lost her face in the mirror,” he falls... Read more

The Court Dancer

By: Kyung-Sook Shin

Narrated by: Rosa Escoda

Length: 11 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

When a novice French diplomat arrives in Korea for an audience with the Emperor, he is enraptured by the Joseon Dynasty's magnificent culture. But all fades away when he sees Yi Jin perform the delicate traditional Dance of the Spring Oriole. Although well aware that women of the court belong to the palace, the young diplomat confesses his love... Read more

The World Could Be Otherwise

By: Norman Fischer

Narrated by: Norman Fischer

Length: 9 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections”—generosity, ethical... 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 Bird Tattoo

By: Dunya Mikhail

Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian

Length: 7 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Helen is a young Yazidi woman, living with her family in a mountain village in Sinjar, northern Iraq. One day she finds a local bird caught in a trap and frees it, just as the trapper, Elias, returns. At first angry, he soon sees the error of his ways and vows never to keep a bird captive again. Helen and Elias fall deeply in love, marry and... Read more

Only This Beautiful Moment

By: Abdi Nazemian

Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Fajer Al-Kaisi & Iman Nazemzadeh

Length: 11 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Stonewall Book Award Winner * A Best Book of the Year from the Guardian, ALA Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and BookPage From the award–winning author of Like a Love Story comes a sweeping story of three generations of boys in the same Iranian family. Perfect for fans of Last Night at the Telegraph Club and Darius the Great Is Not Okay. 2019. Moud is... Read more

The Bruising of Qilwa

By: Naseem Jamnia

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Length: 5 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland. Persian-American author Naseem Jamnia has crafted a gripping narrative with a moving, nuanced exploration of immigration, gender,... Read more

Between Two Moons

By: Aisha Abdel Gawad

Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar Young

Length: 11 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE, THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD, & THE BROOKYLN PUBLIC LIBRARY PRIZE • Set in the Arab immigrant enclave of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, following three siblings coming of age over the course of one Ramadan, "a moving look at family, survival, and celebration" (Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in... Read more

Watch Us Dance

By: Leila Slimani

Narrated by: Lara Sawalha

Length: 9 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

“A rich family saga . . . [written with] voluptuous lyricism and emotional precision.” —The Washington Post

The rebellions within an interracial family play out against the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s in this sexy, stylish, sophisticated new novel by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny and In the... Read more

I Will Greet the Sun Again

By: Khashayar J. Khabushani

Narrated by: Sean Rohani

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

“[A] masterful debut . . . a novel of survival and longing and love, and in many ways a modern portrait of an artist as a young man . . . a book written for us, we Iranian Americans whom you don’t often hear about.”—Porochista Khakpour, The Washington Post (Best Books of the Year)

“A triumph . . . a book of astonishing accomplishment and... Read more

Who Gets Believed

By: Dina Nayeri

Narrated by: Ayesha Antoine

Length: 10 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars? Former refugee and award-winning author Dina Nayeri begins with this question, turning to shocking and illuminating case studies in this book, which grows into a reckoning with our culture’s views on believability. From persuading a doctor that she’d prefer a C-section to learning to “bullshit... Read more

Ghost Season

By: Fatin Abbas

Narrated by: Dion Graham & Bahni Turpin

Length: 9 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

A dynamic, beautifully orchestrated debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.
A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese... Read more

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I

By: Raja Shehadeh

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 5 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

2023 National Book Award Finalist for NonfictionA subtle psychological portrait of the author’s relationship with his father during the twentieth-century battle for Palestinian human rightsAziz Shehadeh was many things: lawyer, activist, and political detainee. He was also the father of bestselling author and activist Raja. In this searingly... Read more

Rana Joon and the One and Only Now

By: Shideh Etaat

Narrated by: Rasha Zamamiri

Length: 9 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

“A breath of fresh air and punch to the gut all rolled into one.” —Adib Khorram, award-winning author of Darius the Great Is Not Okay

This “lyrical” (Kirkus Reviews) coming-of-age novel for fans of Darius the Great Is Not Okay and On the Come Up, set in Southern California in 1996, follows a teen who wants to honor her deceased friend’s legacy... Read more

Eyeliner

By: Zahra Hankir

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

Length: 10 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Pick

“Cosmetic, tool of rebellion, status signifier: Eyeliner has been all these and more. Moving through millenniums and across civilizations, Hankir gives the makeup its eye-opening due.” —The New York Times Book Review

“An impressive, rigorously researched, winding path through centuries and over... Read more