HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US
Palestinian Poetry
Edited by George Abraham and Noor Hindi
Haymarket Books (13 May, 2025)
Trade paper • ISBN-13: 9798888903650 • US $21.95 • 5 in x 8 in • 272 pgs.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
A love letter to Palestinian ancestors, their descendants, and their land, to all anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, to a history that will never be forgotten, and to a future in which there thrives a free, free Palestine.
Poetry has always served as a mode of resistance in Palestinian culture. In defiance of dispossession and decades of military siege, of a nakba that never ended, of historical and cultural obfuscation, of unrelenting violence and thousands of martyred people, the “power to narrate,” as Edward Said wrote, remains a necessary tool for self-determination. The poems collected here reclaim that power, bridging borders, languages, and generations to forge new conversations around resistance and liberation.
HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US is a battle-cry against the annihilation of a people. As Palestinian history remains haunted by exile, violence, and grief, so, too, are the poems in this anthology. And yet, editors George Abraham and Noor Hindi present these realities alongside other themes that are also true: queer and feminist perspectives, eco-poetry, meditations on love and time, and lineages of protest. This anthology dares to imagine a future beyond a nation-state for Palestinian people everywhere. Contributors include Refaat Alareer, Mahmoud Darwish, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mohammed El-Kurd, A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Hala Alyan, Fady Joudah, and Heba Abu Nada, and many other voices, both established and ascending.
PRAISE:
Praise for Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.
“Noor Hindi wields her poetry with passion and righteous anger in this powerful, striking collection that touches the heart and the head, the body and the mind.”
Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Committed
“In this powerful debut, Noor Hindi’s searing poems navigate memory, violence, and inheritance with a candid and critical eye. Filled with heartache, tenderness, love, anger, and humor, they interrogate what it’s like to be woman, Palestinian, and American in today’s world.”
Zeina Hashem Beck, author of O
“Scalding, humorous, unbearable, revolutionary, Noor Hindi’s poetry collection embodies a blind wager that poems might contribute to rendering the impassive American mind alive, at last, to Palestine.”
Sophie Lewis, author of Enemy Feminisms and Abolish the Family
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
George Abraham is a Palestinian-American poet and memoirist who was born on unceded Timucuan lands (Jacksonville, FL). They are the author of Birthright (2020), which won the Arab American Book Award. They are currently executive editor of Mizna and teach at Amherst College.
Noor Hindi is a Palestinian-American poet. Her debut collection of poems, Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. (Haymarket Books 2022), was an honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award.
RIGHTS INFORMATION:
Please contact subagents for the following languages and territories:
| Language/Territory | Subagent |
|---|---|
| China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam | Big Apple Agency |
| Dutch | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| English outside North America | David Grossman Literary Agency |
| French | Deborah Druba Agency |
| German | Paul & Peter Fritz AG Literatur Agentur |
| Greek | Read n' Right Agency |
| Hebrew | The Deborah Harris Agency |
| Italian | Berla & Griffini Rights Agency |
| Japanese | The English Agency (Japan) Ltd |
| Korean | BC Agency, or Korea Copyright Center |
| Portuguese | RIFF Agency |
| Russia/Baltics/Eastern Europe | Prava I Prevodi |
| Scandinavia | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| Spanish in Latin America | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Spanish in Spain | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Turkish | Anatolialit Agency |
For all other languages/territories, please contact Roam Agency.