Hala Alyan

“The world was addicted to watching; over and over, they were reborn, made whole and silver and resplendent, only to crumple into…

— Hala Alyan

“He can feel their eyes upon him. Poor innocent things, he thinks. What is a life? A series of yeses and noes,…

— Hala Alyan

“It started off as ordinary, a little boy fretting. Abdullah asked only Riham, who’d become Mama, soothing him when he woke from…

— Hala Alyan

“But he loves the mosque for its dusty smell, for the carpet prickling his feet, for the predictable hum of the muezzin…

— Hala Alyan

“Atef wants to tell his children that they don’t understand, that their view from the sidelines is incomplete, that somehow in the…

— Hala Alyan

“Parallel lives, she sometimes thinks. It was a matter of parallel lives, one person having lamb for supper, the other cucumbers. With…

— Hala Alyan

“where your father was from. America wasn’t like that. You became what you coveted.”

— Hala Alyan

“She feels the anger quiet into a briny resentment. The bitterness floats like an inkblot in her mind’s eye.”

— Hala Alyan

“It fascinates Manar—not just history”

— Hala Alyan

“She winds her hair into a bun, tilts her long neck back, and parts her lips. It is like watching someone paint…

— Hala Alyan

“grandmother’s building. When she was in bed sometimes, her small heart pounding just before she fell into sleep, she felt an endless…

— Hala Alyan

“That night, when she saw too late her mistake, all those moments that make love and destroy it. Her younger self, almost…

— Hala Alyan

“The sea was like another member of the household, a recalcitrant child at times, a soothing aunt at others. She crooned them…

— Hala Alyan

“America wasn’t like that. You became what you coveted. Memories were short. She met Mexicans, Germans, Libyans, who spoke accented English but…

— Hala Alyan

“It was Time, whirling her along, spinning, spinning, until it finally stopped, and she looked around, blinking, and she was thirty-two.”

— Hala Alyan

“So they’ve seen their parents up close, as one does with statues in Florence. The cracked toes and chalky masonry.”

— Hala Alyan

“Motherhood doesn’t suit me, she once confessed to Budur, drunk. I don’t have the stomach for not knowing what comes next.”

— Hala Alyan

“When you call my name,” Souad yells, and the children erupt in laughter, even Manar. And her heart, her heart, rising with…

— Hala Alyan

“How badly she wanted to shake her eldest and cry out that you don’t have to marry the first person who likes…

— Hala Alyan

“recognizing in that moment that there were some things we are meant to keep for ourselves, too precious to share with others.…

— Hala Alyan

“Nostalgia is an affliction. Life a fever or a cancer, the longing for what had vanished wasting a person away. Not just…

— Hala Alyan

“What is a life? A series of yeses and noes, photographs you shove in a drawer somewhere, loves you think will save…

— Hala Alyan