Ibtisam Azem

Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian novelist, short story writer, and journalist based in New York. She was born and grew up in Tayibe, northern Jaffa. She works as a senior correspondent covering New York and the U.N for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper.

She has published two novels in Arabic; “The Sleep Thief: Gharib Haifawi” (Sariq al-Nawm; Gharib Haifawi) (2010) and “The Book of Disappearance” (Sifr al-Ikhtifa)(2014)). It was translated into several languages including English (Syracuse University Press, 2019), Italian (Hopefulmonster, 2021) and German (Lenos in 2023). Her first short story collection is forthcoming in Fall of 2023. She has also published short stories and essays in Evergreen Review, Journal of Palestine Studies, World Literature Today, among others. 

Azem holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern (Islamic) Studies, with minors in German and English Literature from Freiburg University, Germany and an M.A. in Social Work from NYU.