Excerpt from The Moon That Turns You Back by Hala Alyan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

remains

my grandmother kept four tablecloths
in a cabinet the color of bones
in a city named after wells
which is where my mother calls country
which is where my mother calls me American
which is where we left that tablecloth
damask named after Damascus
which is where men steered their ships
which is where men bought silk
yards and rivers and wheels of it
which is where my grandmother was born
not Latakia which is where she lived
or Kuwait which is where she married
or Beirut which is where she is now bone

Excerpted from The Moon That Turns You Back by Hala Alyan. Copyright © 2024 by Hala Alyan. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.