Ibtisam Azem at Voce Books, Birmingham

About the event

It is our pleasure to announce an evening of conversation with Palestinian novelist, short story writer & journalist IBTISAM AZEM joining Voce Books in Birmingham to discuss her haunting novel of memory & displacement THE BOOK OF DISAPPEARANCE.

This event will be chaired by writer & academic, Thomas Glave.

‘…a book of prophecy. A book of reckoning. A book of gut-wrenching monstrosities & of profound tenderness. In this study of grief & love, state violence & wild self-delusions, Azem fearlessly looks into the void…a heart-breaking, awe-inspiring, genre-defying achievement…’ PRETI TANEJA, author of AFTERMATH

IBTISAM AZEM is a Palestinian novelist, short story writer, & journalist based in New York. She was born & raised in Taybeh, near Jaffa, the city from which her mother & maternal grandparents were internally displaced in 1948. She lived in Jerusalem & studied at the Hebrew University before moving to Germany & later to the US. She has published two novels in Arabic ‘The Sleep Thief’ (2011) & ‘The Book of Disappearance’ (2014). Her first short story collection, ‘I Wish I Were a Hoopoe’, is forthcoming in Arabic in the summer of 2024. ‘The Book of Disappearance’ has been translated into English, Italian, and German.

This is one of Voce’s BORDERLESS events where they foreground world literature in translation, & welcome authors from across the world to discuss their work, often alongside their translators.