Salt Houses

Salt Houses is a 2017 novel by Palestinian-American author Hala Alyan. A multi-generational saga that begins in 1963 and concludes in 2014, the narrative traces the family’s experiences during key events of 20th- and 21st-century Palestinian history. The novel is polyvocal; multiple family members act as narrators. Although the novel provides an in-depth character study of the way that war, displacement, and diaspora impact each family member, it is also a portrait of the Palestinian diaspora writ large: The family’s internal displacement within Palestine followed by moves to Kuwait, Jordan, and the United States is representative of the Palestinian diasporic community during the mid-to-late 20th and early 21st centuries. Hala Alyan is an accomplished writer of both literature and poetry and is also a clinical psychologist.

In addition to Salt Houses, Alyan is also the author of the novel The Arsonist’s City (2021) and poetry collections Atrium (2005), Hijra (2016), and The Twenty-Ninth Year (2019). She was the recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2018 and, also in 2018, was a visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris. Born in Illinois, her family moved to Kuwait when she was young but successfully sought political asylum in the United States after Saddam Hussein invaded the country.