The Book of Disappearance: Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize

Description

Title: The Book of Disappearance: Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize
Author: Azem, Ibtisam
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 04/04/2025
Imprint: TEXT PUBLISHING
ISBN: 9781923058620

What if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day?

The Book of Disappearance is set in contemporary Tel Aviv. Alaa is a young Palestinian man who is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. His Jewish neighbour and friend, Ariel, is a journalist who believes in Israel’s national myth but is critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He begins to search for clues about why Alaa and the Palestinians have vanished. Their stories, and the stories of the ordinary people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv, reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question.


Ibtisam Azem’s spare and evocative novel is an unforgettable glimpse into contemporary Palestine as it grapples with both the memory of loss and the loss of memory.