Children of the Ghetto 1: My Name Is Adam

Published by Dar Al-Adab, Children of the Ghetto: My Name Is Adam (Awlad al-Ghetto: Ismi Adam) is the powerful opening installment of Elias Khoury’s trilogy on Palestinian trauma and historical memory. The story centers on Adam Danoun, an Arab-Israeli emigrant living in New York who was born in 1948 inside the fenced-off "ghetto" established by Israeli forces in Lydda. Initially attempting to write a literary critique of the classical Arabic poet Waddah al-Yaman, Adam’s notebooks gradually transform into a raw testimony of his early life, the fate of his mother, and the collective memory of those trapped behind barbed wire. Khoury blends historical realism with metafictional brilliance, questioning how victims construct their narratives when stripped of their voice and homeland.

It offers an extraordinary combination of historical fiction, metafiction, and human emotion, shedding unprecedented light on the silenced history of the Lydda ghetto through masterful Arabic prose.

Ideal for readers of modern Arabic fiction, lovers of complex multi-layered narratives, and scholars interested in postcolonial memory, diaspora, and Middle Eastern history.