28^th Leukerbad International Literary Festival

Authors

Ibtisam Azem

Palestine

Born in Tayyibe (Israel) in 1974, Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian writer and journalist. Her academic journey took her to Freiburg im Breisgau, where she completed work in Islamic Studies and German and English Literatures, and to New York, where she continued her studies in social work. In Berlin, she gained experience at Deutsche Welle before moving to New York in 2012. There she works as a UN correspondent for the al-Araby al-Jadeed news outlet. In addition, she is a co-publisher of the online magazine Jadliyya and has published two novels.
Her novel The Book of Disappearance asks what would happen if the entire Palestinian population of Israel suddenly and inexplicably disappeared one midnight as if they had been abducted by aliens. With this magic-realist setting, Ibtisam Azem’s novel makes an impressive, original appeal against forgetting and for peaceful co-existence.

The Book of Disappearance. Novel. Translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon. And Other Stories, 2024
Das Buch vom Verschwinden. Roman. Aus dem Arabischen von Joël László. Lenos 2023

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