# Arab American Book Award

The Arab American Book Award, established in 2006, is an annual literary award to celebrate and support the research of, and the written work of, Arab Americans and their culture. The Arab American Book Award encourages the publication and excellence of books that preserve and advance the understanding, knowledge, and resources of the Arab American community by celebrating the thoughts and lives of Arab Americans. The purpose of the Award is to inspire authors, educate readers and foster a respect and understanding of the Arab American culture.
The Arab American Book Award was brought about by the Arab American National Museum and faculty members of the nearby University of Toledo. The winning titles are chosen by groups of selected readers including respected authors, university professors, artists and AANM staff. The Awards are given during an invitation only event in the Fall of the award year. The AANM first gave these awards in 2007 for books published in 2006; for 2007, the number of submissions more than doubled from the inaugural year.
To help ensure the continuity of the Arab American Book Award a special endowment fund has been launched with a $10,000 gift from Drs. A. Adnan and Barbara C. Aswad. Dr. Barbara C. Aswad is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and a past president of the Middle Eastern Studies Association and a Board Member Emerita for the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), parent organization of the Arab American National Museum. Dr. A. Adnan Aswad is Professor Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Michigan–Dearborn. The Aswads, now based in Los Angeles, were inspired to make the gift after the inaugural Book Award ceremony in Fall 2007.
In 2011, the non-fiction prize was renamed to honor the legacy and contributions to Arab American scholarship of Evelyn Shakir, who died of breast cancer in 2010. In addition to winning the Arab American Book Award for Fiction in 2008, Professor Shakir extensively researched the history of Arab women and wrote the groundbreaking work Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States in 1997. Evelyn's longtime partner, poet George Ellenbogen, established the award in collaboration with the Arab American National Museum.

## Chronology change (2009)

In 2009, The Arab American Book Award Committee changed the name of the '2008 Arab American Book Award' to the '2009 Arab American Book Award' in order to reflect the true award date instead of the publication date of the winning books. All dates in the previous Award years were also changed retroactively. While the date within the Award name has changed, the rules regarding the publication dates for eligible submissions have not.

## Award recipients
### Adult fiction

Winners and honorable mentions in Adult fiction :
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Result |
| 2007 | Hisham Matar | In the Country of Men | Winner |
| 2008 | Evelyn Shakir | Remember Me to Lebanon | Winner |
| 2008 | Diana Abu-Jaber | Origin | Honorable mention |
| 2009 | Randa Jarrar | A Map of Home: A Novel | Winner |
| 2010 | Etel Adnan | Master of the Eclipse: And Other Stories | Winner |
| 2011 | Thérèse Soukar Chehade | Loom: a Novel | Winner |
| 2012 | Diana Abu-Jaber | Birds of Paradise | Winner |
| 2012 | Hisham Matar | Anatomy of a Disappearance | Honorable mention |
| 2013 | Joseph Geha | Lebanese Blonde | Winner |
| 2013 | Hedy Habra | Flying Carpets | Honorable mention |
| 2014 | Sinan Antoon | The Corpse Washer | Winner |
| 2014 | Claire Messud | The Woman Upstairs | Honorable mention |
| 2015 | Rabih Alameddine | An Unnecessary Woman | Winner (tie) |
| 2015 | Laila Lalami | The Moor's Account | Winner (tie) |
| 2016 | Susan Muaddi Darraj | A Curious Land | Winner |
| 2016 | Rajia Hassib | In the Language of Miracles | Honorable mention |
| 2017 | Rabih Alameddine | The Angel of History | Winner |
| 2017 | Mona Awad | 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl | Honorable mention |
| 2018 | Hala Alyan | Salt Houses | Winner |
| 2019 | Lena Mahmoud | Amreekiya | Winner |
| 2020 | Laila Lalami | The Other Americans | Winner |
| 2020 | Etaf Rum | A Woman is No Man | Honorable mention |
| 2021 | Susan Abulhawa | Against the Loveless World | Winner |
| 2021 | Dima Alzayat | Alligator And Other Stories | Honorable mention |
| 2022 | Eman Quotah | Bride of the Sea | Winner |
| 2023 | Chelsea Abdullah | The Stardust Thief | Winner (tie) |
| 2023 | Noor Naga | If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English | Winner (tie) |

### Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award

Prior to 2011, this award was referred to primarily as the Non-Fiction Award.
Winners and honorable mentions in non-fiction :
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Result |
| 2007 | Rashid Khalidi | The Iron Cage | Winner |
| 2007 | Randa Kayyali | The Arab Americans | Honorable mention |
| 2007 | Tim Jon Semmerling | “Evil” Arabs in American Popular Film | Honorable mention |
| 2008 | John Tofik Karam | Another Arabesque | Winner |
| 2008 | Raff Ellis | Kisses from a Distance | Honorable mention |
| 2008 | Nawal Nasrallah | Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens | Honorable mention |
| 2009 | Moustafa Bayoumi | How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America | Winner |
| 2009 | Fayeq Oweis | The Encyclopedia of Arab American Artists | Honorable mention |
| 2009 | Saree Makdisi | Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation | Honorable mention |
| 2010 | Gregory Orfalea | Angeleno Days: An Arab American Writer on Family, Place, and Politics | Winner |
| 2010 | Louise Cainkar | Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11 | Honorable mention |
| 2010 | Alia Malek | A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories. | Honorable mention |
| 2011 | Samir Abu-Absi | Arab Americans in Toledo: Cultural Assimilation and Community Involvement edited | Winner |
| 2011 | Manal M. Omar | Barefoot in Baghdad | Honorable mention |
| 2012 | Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Alsultany and Nadine Naber (eds.) | Arab and Arab-American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, & Belonging edited | Winner |
| 2012 | Steven Salaita | Modern Arab-American Fiction: A Reader's Guide | Honorable mention |
| 2013 | Anthony Shadid | House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and Lost Middle East | Winner |
| 2013 | Sophia Al Maria | The Girl Who Fell to Earth | Honorable mention |
| 2013 | Soha Al-Jurf | Even My Voice Is Silence | Honorable mention |
| 2014 | Nadje Al-Ali and Deborah Al-Najjar | We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War edited | Winner |
| 2014 | Evelyn Alsultany and Ella Shohat | Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora edited | Honorable mention |
| 2014 | Laila el-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt | The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Cultural Journey | Honorable mention |
| 2015 | Sally Howell | Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past | Winner |
| 2016 | Moustafa Bayoumi | This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror | Winner (tie) |
| 2016 | Mona M. Amer and Germine H. Awad | Handbook of Arab American Psychology | Winner (tie) |
| 2017 | Steven Salaita | Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine | Winner |
| 2017 | Hanan Hammad | Industrial Sexuality: Gender, Urbanization, and Social Transformation in Egypt | Honorable mention |
| 2018 | Pamela E. Pennock | The Rise of the Arab-American Left: Activists, Allies, and Their Fight Against Imperialism and Racism, 1960s–1980s | Winner |
| 2018 | Mehammed Amadeus Mack | Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the Sexualization of National Culture | Honorable mention |
| 2019 | Oswaldo Truzzi | Syrian and Lebanese Patricios in São Paulo, | Winner |
| 2020 | Massoud Hayoun | When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family's Forgotten History | Winner (tie) |
| 2020 | Stacy Fahrenthold | Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925 | Winner (tie) |
| 2020 | Sherine Hafez | Women of the Midan: The Untold Stories of Egypt's Revolutionaries | Honorable mention |
| 2021 | Sarah M.A. Gualtieri | Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California | Winner (tie) |
| 2021 | Helen Zughaib and Elia Zughaib | Stories My Father Told Me | Winner (tie) |
| 2021 | Sirène Harb | Articulations Of Resistance: Transformative Practices in Contemporary Arab American Poetry | Honorable mention |
| 2022 | Mansoor Adayfe | Don't Forget Us Here | Winner (tie) |
| 2022 | Zainab Saleh | Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia | Winner (tie) |
| 2022 | Michael W. Suleiman, Suad Joseph, and Louise Cainkar | Arab American Women: Representation and Refusal | Honorable mention |
| 2023 | Edward E. Curtis IV | Muslims of the Heartland | Winner (tie) |
| 2023 | Ghassan Zeineddine, Nabeel Abraham, and Sally Howell (Eds.) | Hadha Baladuna | Winner (tie) |
| 2023 | Evelyn Alsultany | Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion | Honorable mention |
| 2023 | Louise Cainkar, Pauline Homsi Vinson, and Amira Jarmakani (Eds.) | Sajjilu: A Reader in SWANA Studies | Honorable mention |
| 2023 | Luma Mufleh | Learning America: One Woman's Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children | Honorable mention |

### Children's/Young Adult

Children's/Young Adult winners and honorable mentions :
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Result | Ref. |
| 2007 | Eve Bunting with Ted Lewin (illus.) | One Green Apple | Winner | |
| 2008 | Ibtisam Barakat | Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood | Winner | |
| 2009 | Naomi Shihab Nye | Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose | Winner | |
| 2010 | No winner | No winner | No winner | No winner |
| 2011 | Diane Stanley | Saving Sky | Winner | |
| 2011 | Maha Addasi with Ned Gannon (illus.) | Time to Pray | Honorable mention | |
| 2012 | No winner | No winner | No winner | No winner |
| 2013 | Karen Leggett Abouraya and Susan L. Roth | Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt's Treasured Books | Winner | |
| 2013 | Tahereh Mafi | Shatter Me | Honorable mention | |
| 2014 | Yvonne Wakim Dennis and Maha Addasi | Kids Guide to Arab American History | Winner | |
| 2014 | Saima S. Hussain | The Arab World Thought of It | Honorable mention | |
| 2015 | Naomi Shihab Nye | The Turtle of Oman | Winner | |
| 2015 | Elsa Marston with Claire Ewart (illus.) | The Olive Tree | Honorable mention | |
| 2016 | No Winner | No Winner | No Winner | No Winner |
| 2017 | Michelle Chalfoun | The Treasure of Maria Mamoun | Winner | |
| 2017 | Hayan Charara | The Three Lucys | Honorable mention | |
| 2017 | Ibtisam Barakat | Balcony on the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine | Honorable mention | |
| 2018 | No Winner | No Winner | No Winner | No Winner |
| 2019 | Hoda Kotb | I’ve Loved You Since Forever | Winner | |
| 2019 | Somaiya Daud | Mirage | Honorable mention | |
| 2020 | Malaka Gharib | I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir | Winner | |
| 2020 | Jasmine Warga | Other Words for Home | Honorable mention | |
| 2021 | Aya Khalil with Anait Semirdzhyan (illus.) | The Arabic Quilt | Winner (tie) | |
| 2021 | Susan Muaddi Darraj | Farah Rocks Fifth Grade | Winner (tie) | |
| 2022 | Safia Elhillo | Home is Not a Country | Winner | |
| 2023 | Cathy Camper | Arab, Arab All Year Long! | Winner (C) | |
| 2023 | Rashida Tlaib, Adam Tlaib, and Miranda Paul | Mama in Congress: Rashida Tlaib's Journey to Washington | Honorable mention (C) | |
| 2023 | Nora Lester Murad | Ida in the Middle | Winner (YA) | |
| 2023 | Naomi Shihab Nye | The Turtle of Michigan | Honorable mention (YA) | |

### George Ellenbogen Poetry Award

Winners and honorable mentions in poetry :
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Result |
| 2009 | Suheir Hammad | breaking poems | Winner |
| 2010 | Dunya Mikhail | Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea | Winner |
| 2011 | Khaled Mattawa | Tocqueville | Winner |
| 2011 | Farid Matuk | This Is a Nice Neighborhood | Honorable mention |
| 2012 | Philip Metres | Abu Ghraib Arias | Winner |
| 2012 | Naomi Shihab Nye | Transfer | Honorable mention |
| 2013 | Hala Alyan | Atrium | Winner |
| 2013 | Etel Adnan | Sea and Fog | Honorable mention |
| 2014 | Philip Metres | A Concordance of Leaves | Winner |
| 2014 | Farid Matuk | My Daughter La Chola | Honorable mention |
| 2014 | Fady Joudah | Alight | Honorable mention |
| 2015 | Matthew Shenoda | Tahrir Suite: Poems | Winner |
| 2015 | Samuel Hazo | And the Time Is: Poems, 1958-2003 | Honorable mention |
| 2016 | Nathalie Handal | The Republics | Winner |
| 2016 | Philip Metres | Sand Opera | Honorable mention |
| 2017 | Hayan Charara | Something Sinister | Winner |
| 2017 | Lauren Camp | One Hundred Hungers | Honorable mention |
| 2017 | Mohja Kahf | Hagar Poems | Honorable mention |
| 2018 | Safia Elhillo | The January Children | Winner |
| 2018 | Lena Khalaf Tuffaha | Water & Salt | Honorable mention |
| 2019 | Fady Joudah | Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance | Winner |
| 2019 | Noor Al-Samarrai | El Cerrito | Honorable mention |
| 2020 | Zaina Alsous | A Theory of Birds | Winner |
| 2020 | Marwa Helal | Invasive Species | Honorable mention |
| 2021 | George Abraham | Birthright | Winner |
| 2021 | Noor Naga | Washes, Prays | Honorable mention |
| 2022 | Threa Almontaser | The Wild Fox of Yemen | Winner |
| 2022 | Eli Tareq Bechelany-Lynch | The Good Arabs | Honorable mention |
| 2023 | Zeina Hashem Beck | O | Winner |
| 2023 | Noor Hindi | DEAR GOD. DEAR BONES. DEAR YELLOW. | Honorable mention |
| 2023 | Lubna Safi | Your Blue and the Quiet Lament | Honorable mention |