Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award

A Best Book of the Year: NPR NYLON Kirkus Bustle BookPage

“What does home mean when you no longer have a houseor a homeland? This beautiful novel traces one Palestinian family’s struggle with that question and how it can haunt generations. . . . This is an example of how fiction is often the best filter for the real world around us.”NPR

Lyrical and heartbreaking,Salt Housesfollows three generations of a Palestinian family and asks us to confrontthat most devastating of all truths: you cant go home again.

On the eve of her daughter Alias wedding, Salma reads the girlsfuture in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel and luck. While she chooses to keepher predictions to herself that day, they will all sooncome to passwhen the family is uprooted inthe wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.

Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus;Alias brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world hecant escape;andAlia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam HusseininvadesKuwait in1990, Alia and her familyonce againlose their home and their land, scattering toBeirut,Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alias children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings)of assimilation in foreign cities.

Salt Housesis a remarkabledebut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflictwemightthink we understand.