Diana Abu-Jaber

"It’s hard to write too overtly about racism without coming across as heavy-handed or didactic. But if you’re too subtle, there’s the sense that you’re side-stepping the issue. Still, I’ve learned to w…"

"…I pretended I didn't understand Arabic when he spoke to me in public places. Because when I was a younger child, Arabic was a secret code in the family - I think that’s true for a lot of immigrant fa…"

"I never intended to write solely about Arab characters, or even primarily about them, but because they were such a big part of my first two novels and my memoir, people reckoned that was my main liter…"

"…I think that was really important growing up around story tellers like my dad and my uncles. I think it instilled a love of the beauty of the spoken story. Also, my mother was a reading teacher. She …"