SWANA Authors

Headscarves and Hymens

By: Mona Eltahawy

Narrated by: Mona Eltahawy

Length: 5 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

A passionate manifesto decrying misogyny in the Arab world, by an Egyptian American journalist and activist

When the Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy published an article in Foreign Policy magazine in 2012 titled "Why Do They Hate Us?" it provoked a firestorm of controversy. The response it generated, with more than four thousand posts on the... Read more

Anatomy of a Disappearance

By: Hisham Matar

Narrated by: Khalid Abdalla

Length: 5 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Nuri is a young boy when his mother dies. It seems that nothing will fill the emptiness that her strange death leaves behind in the Cairo apartment he shares with his father. Until they meet Mona, sitting in her yellow swimsuit by the pool of the Magda Marina hotel. As soon as Nuri sees her, the rest of the world vanishes. But it is Nuri’s... Read more

The Prophet

By: Kahlil Gibran

Narrated by: Becky Ann Baker

Length: 1 hour 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Gibran considered The Prophet to be his greatest achievement. First published in 1923, The Prophet has been translated into more than twenty languages, and has become one of the beloved classics of our time. Cherished by millions, the universally inspiring words of The Prophet are here magnificently read aloud. Read more

Birds of Paradise

By: Diana Abu-Jaber

Narrated by: Tamara Marston

Length: 14 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Avis Muir is a brilliant pastry chef, Brian Muir a corporate real estate attorney. Their son, Stanley, is the proprietor of a trendy food market. Their beautiful daughter, Felice, is missing. A runaway at 13, Felice has spent five years modeling tattoos, skateboarding, clubbing, and sleeping in a squat house or on the beach. She’s about to turn... Read more

If You Could Be Mine

By: Sara Farizan

Narrated by: Negin Farsad

Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Seventeen-year-old Sahar has been in love with her best friend, Nasrin, since they were six. They’ve shared stolen kisses and romantic promises. But Iran is a dangerous place for two girls in love—Sahar and Nasrin could be beaten, imprisoned, even executed if their relationship came to light.

So they carry on in secret—until Nasrin’s parents... Read more

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel

By: Sara Farizan

Narrated by: Negin Farsad

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Leila has made it most of the way through Armstead Academy without having a crush on anyone, which is a relief. As an Iranian American, she's different enough; if word got out that Leila liked girls, life would be twice as hard.  But when beautiful new girl Saskia shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would.

As she carefully... Read more

The Prophet

By: Kahlil Gibran

Narrated by: Jonathan Reese

Length: 2 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Kahlil Gibran—poet, philosopher, and artist—was born in Lebanon in 1883 but spent his final twenty years of life living in the United States. The three books that compose this audiobook are collections of Gibran's aphorisms, parables, and poetic essays.



The first book, The Prophet, was originally published in 1923 and is considered Gibran's... Read more

Equal of the Sun

By: Anita Amirrezvani

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 13 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Iran in 1576 is a place of peace, wealth, and dazzling beauty. But when the Shah dies without having named an heir, the court is thrown into tumult. Princess Pari, the Shah's daughter and closest adviser, knows more about the inner workings of the state than almost anyone, but the princess's maneuvers to instill order after her father's sudden... Read more

The Last Girl

By: Nadia Murad

Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin

Length: 12 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE • In this “courageous” (The Washington Post) memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story.
 
Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers... Read more

American Radical

By: Tamer Elnoury & Kevin Maurer

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The explosive memoir of a Muslim American FBI agent fighting terror from the inside.

It’s no secret that federal agencies are waging a broad, global war against terror. But for the first time in this memoir, an active Muslim American federal agent reveals his experience infiltrating and bringing down a terror cell in... Read more

Down and Across

By: Arvin Ahmadi

Narrated by: Assaf Cohen

Length: 7 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

"John Green fans will appreciate this tale." —USA Today
"[A] humorous, deeply human coming-of-age story." —The Washington Post

Scott Ferdowsi has a track record of quitting. His best friends know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion. With college... Read more

The Home That Was Our Country

By: Alia Malek

Narrated by: Alia Malek

Length: 12 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia... Read more

The Occasional Virgin

By: Hanan al-Shaykh

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

Length: 7 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

In this frank and fearless novel, acclaimed writer Hanan al-Shaykh follows the tumultuous lives and sometimes shocking choices of women successful in their careers but unlucky in love.
 
On a sunny beach on the Italian Riviera, two thirtysomething women, Yvonne and Huda, relax by the sparkling sea. But despite the setting, as their vacation... Read more

The Prophet, & The Wanderer

By: Khalil Gibran

Narrated by: Robert Glenister

Length: 3 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) was Lebanese by birth but spent a major part of his life in America in the early part of the twentieth century. He wrote many collections of stories with a wise or whimsical tone, but none more popular than The Prophet, his first collection, or The Wanderer, his final anthology. They are read here with great sympathy... Read more

Adamalui

By: Joseph Kaifala

Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi

Length: 8 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

As a survivor of the devastating civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Joseph Kaifala recounts the harrowing details af an early life punctuated by unimaginable violence and his journey to survival that eventually led him to the United States. Told with humility and grace, Adamalui is the true story of one man’s unshakable faith, thirst for... Read more

Reset

By: Stephen Kinzer

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 9 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the twenty-first century: Turkey and Iran.



Besides proposing this new "power triangle," Kinzer recommends... Read more

Making the Arab World

By: Fawaz A. Gerges

Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart

Length: 18 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically elected president—Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood—and subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift in Egypt and the Middle East: the... Read more

A Horse Walks Into a Bar

By: David Grossman

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 5 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of standup. In the audience is a district court justice, Avishai Lazar, whom Dov knew as a boy, along with a few others who remember Dov as the awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually,... Read more

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

By: Tahereh Mafi

Narrated by: Priya Ayyar

Length: 6 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

A National Book Award Longlist title!From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series comes a powerful, heartrending contemporary novel about fear, first love, and the devastating impact of prejudice.
It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like... Read more

The Boy on the Beach

By: Tima Kurdi

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

Length: 8 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

An intimate and poignant memoir about the family of Alan Kurdi—the young Syrian boy who became the global emblem for the desperate plight of millions of Syrian refugees—and of the many extraordinary journeys the Kurdis have taken, spanning countries and continents.

Alan Kurdi’s body washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea on September 2,... Read more

Mirage

By: Somaiya Daud

Narrated by: Rasha Zamamiri

Length: 8 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

“Mirage is full of characters who feel like they existed long before the story began, and a rich world that is as beautiful as it is cruel. Somaiya Daud is a rare talent. A smart, romantic, exciting debut.” —Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divergent and Carve the Mark

A stunning epic fantasy audiobook inspired by the... Read more

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

By: Nabeel Qureshi

Narrated by: Nabeel Qureshi, Michelle Qureshi, Mark Mittelbe...

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 2015 Christian Book Award winner • Nabeel Qureshi describes his dramatic journey from Islam to Christianity in this expanded edition with new bonus content and reflections. "My friend Nabeel Qureshi was courageous enough to chase down the truth with intellectual integrity, no matter the personal cost," --Lee Strobel,... Read more

I'm Writing You from Tehran

By: Delphine Minoui

Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar

Length: 9 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

A journalist returns to her family home in Iran, witnessing enormous political, social, and personal change.

Suffering the recent loss of her beloved grandfather and newly committed to a career in journalism, Delphine Minoui decided to visit Iran for the first time since the revolution—since she was four years old. It was 1998. She would stay for... Read more

The Other Americans

By: Laila Lalami

Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, Ozzie ...

Length: 10 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Fiction
Winner of the Arab American Book Award in Fiction
Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, the Washington Post, BookPage, NPR, the Guardian, Variety, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and Kirkus Reviews. 

From the Pulitzer... Read more