What if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day? What would happen next? How would Israelis react? These unsettling questions are posed in Ibtisam Azem’s powerfully imaginative novel
Alaa is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland after the Nakba. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of their collective disappearance.
That search, and Ariel’s reactions to it, intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. Between the stories of Alaa and Ariel are the people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv – café patrons, radio commentators, flower-cutters – against whose ordinary lives these fissures and questions play out.
Spare yet evocative, intensely intelligent in its interplay of perspectives, The Book of Disappearance – which was critically acclaimed in its original Arabic edition – is an unforgettable glimpse into contemporary Palestine as it grapples with both the memory of loss and the loss of memory.
About the Author
Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian novelist, short story writer, and journalist based in New YorkAbout the Translator
Born in Baghdad, Sinan Antoon is a poet, novelist, and translatorSpeculative and haunting, this is an exceptional exercise in memory-making and psycho-geography
— The 2025 judges on The Book of Disappearance
‘Speculative and meditative, haunting and deeply humane, Azem’s second novel is an exceptional exercise in memory-making, history, and psycho-geography. The premise – the overnight disappearance of all Palestinians – is at once ambitious and audacious, shocking and unsettling. The author dares us to imagine, and from this place of imagination erupts a challenge: to read differently, against the grain. The book alternates between the perspectives of Alaa (whose grandmother was displaced during the Nakba) and his neighbour-friend Ariel (a liberal Zionist journalist), between past and present. Azem’s strength is in having fun with a conceit that’s not for the faint-hearted. We found that this palimpsestic and potent novel – originally published over a decade ago, and translated into English with a coolness and spareness – offered newfound socio-political, moral and emotional resonances and implications in the current climate.’
John Self, The Guardian
‘US-based Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem’s second novel has a seductively bold concept…This rich, potent novel reminds us that there are no easy answers.’
University of Rochester
‘For all the inescapable politics inherent here, Azem portrays people with complicated relationships—Alaa’s mother to his grandmother, fathers of both Alaa and Ariel, a former wife and present lovers of the men. The flow of the novel is smooth, an effective, almost-placid surface under which are deep waters, faster currents, dark places. This novel would make an excellent one for a book club interested in fiction as a door into current challenges.’
Buzz Magazine
‘Painting a fantastical scenario with a deeply authentic basis, The Book Of Disappearance proceeds gracefully but harbours righteous anger, and should induce something similar in its readers.’
The Citizen
‘The Book of Disappearance demonstrates Azem’s dexterity, imagination and craft and has been brought to English-language readers in the pure, measured prose of the poet and writer Sinan Antoon.’
‘It took me about three years to write the book, which included research and interviews that go hand in hand with writing. I start out by outlining and sketching until I reach a point where I’m living in the world of my characters. I start writing but go back to reading and research to fill gaps and add necessary details and there are always pleasant surprises that take me beyond my plan. It’s a dynamic process. I wanted to make sure that I give enough space to characters with whose politics I disagreed and have them be three-dimensional.’
Read the full interview here.
‘I read The Book of Disappearance once Ibtisam finished writing it when it was still an unpublished manuscript in Arabic. I was stunned by its beauty and told her that I wanted to translate it as soon as I had the time. I was teaching and finishing a book of my own. I read it again when it was published. The translation took me a year and a half.’
Read the full interview here.
