Daughters of Palestine (A Memoir in Five Generations)

From Palestine to Texas in 100 years, this epic family tale follows five generations of Christian women as their family’s intimate dramas—full of hope, fear, grief, and joy— play out against a backdrop of violence that would rip them from their homeland. 

Leyla King has been a keeper of family stories since long before she sat down across from her grandmother with a tiny cassette tape recorder. And in this beautifully crafted memoir, she braids matriarchal memory into a vivid saga of love and survival as her ancestors flee war and poverty. From Haifa to Ramallah, Damascus, Beirut, and finally Texas, Leyla makes global politics deeply personal as family squabbles, ambition, mental illness, romance, and religion shape their immigrant journey. Narrated in immersive, lyrical vignettes, Daughters of Palestine is both an urgent testimony from Palestinian Christians and a timeless story of resilience.
 
“We start with laughing now. Now, in the comfort of my own home, with steaming cups of tea before us and the promise of the cookies I made yesterday awaiting us in the kitchen, we share these stories, to be recorded and retained and remembered, with joy and thankfulness. But it wasn’t always that way. There was much suffering, too. To get to this place, this moment, with Leylati, there was first pain and heartache and so much loss. . . . We start with laughing now, but before that, first, there was Za’leh.”

Last Syllable Book Award Nonfiction Finalist (2025)