The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders

In 2019, Sarah Aziza nearly lost her life after being hospitalized for an eating disorder. Along the process of recovery, Aziza begins to uncover her Palestinian roots. Daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, The Hollow Half tells the story of three generations of Palestinian displacement and survival.

Winner of the 2026 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Memoir, Aziza pens an innovative reckoning that weaves Arabic translation, hauntings, reporting, and geographies together in a stunning blend that asks—what does it mean to belong to a legacy of defiant survival?

Anisfield-Wolf juror and historian Charles King writes, “Throughout The Hollow Half, Aziza weaves personal narrative with history and laces both with the revelatory beauty of the Arabic language. Words bear their own secrets, of lost lives and shadow ideas, of home, horrors, and healing.”

Sarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer, translator, and artist with roots in ‘Ibdis and Deir al-Balah, Gaza. The recipient of a Fulbright fellowship and numerous grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, she has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, South Africa, the West Bank, and the United States. Her award-winning journalism, poetry, essays, and experimental nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Harper’s Magazine, Mizna, Lux, The Washington Post, The Intercept, The Rumpus, NPR, The Margins, and The Nation, among other publications

Join the City Club as we hear from Sarah Aziza, the 2026 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner in Memoir, for a conversation on generational displacement, ancestral memories, and finding a way forward in ‘the land of the living.’

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As part of our celebration of the 91st Anisfield Wolf Book Awards, we will be holding a book club for The Hollow Half on Thursday, September 17th at noon. If you'd like to join City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop and other members in conversation about the book, sign up HERE, and we'll hold a free copy of the book for you for pickup at the City Club. Lunch will be provided. For more info on the book club, click HERE.

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Online ticket sales for this forum will conclude on Wednesday, September 16th at 11:30am. Still need a ticket? Let us know! Complete the ticket waitlist form here. We will reach out directly if we can accommodate your request, subject to availability.

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The livestream will be available beginning at 12:00pm. Have questions for the Q&A? Text them to 330.541.5794.

Production and distribution of City Club forums in partnership with Ideastream Public Media is generously provided by PNC and the United Black Fund.