Salt Houses
Hala Alyan
A sweeping debut novel following three generations of a Palestinian family from Nablus to Kuwait, Beirut, Paris, and Boston — winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding in Nablus, Salma reads the young woman’s future in the dregs of a coffee cup — and keeps what she sees to herself. The Six-Day War of 1967 soon scatters the family: Salma is forced from her home, Alia’s brother is drawn into the armed struggle, and Alia and her husband build a life in Kuwait City, only to lose everything again when Saddam Hussein invades in 1990. From Nablus to Kuwait, Beirut, Paris, and Boston, Hala Alyan’s debut novel follows three generations of one Palestinian family through repeated uprooting — and through the quieter displacements of assimilation, memory, and the silences the elders keep about what was lost.
Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, Salt Houses is a portrait of the Nakba’s long aftermath told at the scale of the family, where history arrives as inheritance.
About the author
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American novelist, poet, and clinical psychologist based in New York. Her poetry collections include Atrium and The Twenty-Ninth Year; her second novel, The Arsonists’ City, was published in 2021.
Details
- Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017
- Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award
- ISBN 9780544912588
The edition
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Connected in the archive
22 connected records22 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
named in this record — 3 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Hala Alyan
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: …her husband build a life in Kuwait City, only to lose everything again when Saddam Hussein invades in 1990. From Nablus to Kuwait, Beirut, Paris, and Boston, Hala Alyan's debut novel follows three generations of one Palestinian family through repeated uprooting — and through the quieter displacements of assimilation, memory, and the silences the elders keep about…
- Nablusنابلس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding in Nablus, Salma reads the young woman's future in the dregs of a coffee cup — and keeps what she sees to herself.
- The Six-Day War
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The Six-Day War of 1967 soon scatters the family: Salma is forced from her home, Alia's brother is drawn into the armed struggle, and Alia and her husband build a life in Kuwait City, only to lose everything again when Saddam Hussein invades in 1990.
on a related subject — 19 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- Mornings in Jenin
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Shared tags: "novel", "family saga".
- Apeirogon
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "novel".
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "diaspora".
- Balata Campمخيّم بلاطة
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "nablus".
- Enter Ghost
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "diaspora".
- Gate of the Sun
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "novel".
- and 13 more
Cite this page
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- Chicago
“Salt Houses.” Library, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/library/salt-houses/.- MLA
“Salt Houses.” Library, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/library/salt-houses/. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-salt-houses, title = {Salt Houses}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/library/salt-houses/}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }