Ibtisam Azem

Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian short story writer, novelist, 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. She is a senior correspondent for the Arabic daily al-Araby al-Jadeed. She is co-editor at Jadaliyya e-zine. Ibtisam Azem has published two novels in Arabic: Sariq al-Nawm (The Sleep Thief, 2011) and Sifr al-Ikhtifaa (The Book of Disappearance, 2014), both by Dar al-Jamal (Beirut, Lebanon). The Book of Disappearance, translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon, was published by Syracuse University Press in July 2019. Some of her writings have been translated and published in French, German, English and Hebrew appeared in several anthologies and journals. She is working on her third novel and pursuing an MA in Social Work from NYU’s Silver school.