Ibtisam Azem Author

Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian novelist, short story writer, and journalist, based in New York. She was born and raised in Taybeh, near Jaffa, the city from which her mother and maternal grandparents were internally displaced in 1948 Nakba. She lived in Jerusalem before moving to Germany and later to the US.

Azem holds an MA in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, with minors in German and English Literature, from Freiburg University (Germany), as well as an MA in Social Work from New York University. She works as a senior correspondent for the Arabic newspaper, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, in New York.

She has published two novels in Arabic: The Sleep Thief (2011) and The Book of Disappearance (2014). Her first short story collection, City of Strangers, is forthcoming in Arabic in the summer of 2025. The Book of Disappearance has been translated into English, Italian, and German, and is forthcoming in Portuguese and Polish.

Azem’s short stories and essays have appeared in several anthologies and various magazines, including Evergreen Review, Journal of Palestine Studies, World Literature Today, and Jadaliyya.