9-Book Shortlist Announced for 2017 Palestine Book Awards

Yesterday, organizers announced the shortlist for the sixth annual Palestine Book Awards:

The award, sponsored by the Middle East Monitor (MEMO) is to honor books in English about Palestine — either those written or translated into English– in any genre.

This year, 41 books were submitted to the prize, and a five-judge panel, which included prominent writer Haifa Zangana, decided on a shortlist of nine.

The shortlist includes a YA novel and YA memoir as well as political and scholarly works. The titles:

Ibtisam Barakat:
Balcony on the Moon (FSG Macmillan)

Petter Bauck and Mohammed Omer:
The Oslo Accords (The American University in Cairo Press)

Ahlam Bsharat, with translator Nancy Roberts:
Code Name Butterfly (Neem Tree Press Ltd)

Bjora Brenner:
Gaza under Hamas: From Islamic Democracy to Islamist Governance (I.B. Tauris)

Ben Ehrenreich:
The Way to the Spring (Granta Publications)

Samia Halaby:
Drawing the Kafr Qassem Massacre (Schilt Publishing)

Ilan Pappe:
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A history of the Occupied Territories (One World Publications)

Laila Parsons:
The Commander: Fawzi Al-Qawuqji and the fight for Arab Independence 1914-1948 (Saqi Books)

Ella Shohat:
On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and other displacements (Pluto Press)

The winners will be announced on Friday, November 24 at an event in London. The night before, organizers promise an evening celebrating the shortlisted authors at the P21 Gallery.