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Traditional · United States
Alaa Al-Barkawi
First-generation Iraqi American writer centering SWANA and diaspora stories in her 2026 debut, In the Country I Love.
Belonging is not a single answer; fiction gives us room to hold all the places and histories that shape it.
Alaa Al-Barkawi is a first-generation Iraqi American writer whose work centers Southwest Asian and North African communities, diaspora, belonging, and the complicated meanings of home.
Her first novel, In the Country I Love, was published in 2026 by Peachtree Teen. With a one-book catalog and a clearly articulated commitment to stories rarely given the center of the page, Al-Barkawi arrives as a distinctive new voice in young-adult fiction.
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