21 Stunning Books Set in the Middle East

Read around the world with the best books set in the Middle East. Satisfy your wanderlust by exploring these stunning books about the Middle East.

For the 2025 Reading Challenge, I decided to make a Book Set in the Middle East one of the prompts. With the current state of Middle Eastern affairs, it felt appropriate to read more about the region.

Being a heavy fiction reader, I decided to narrow the focus on my books set in the Middle East book list to only cover novels. Novels can give you a deeper impression of a place and culture using a powerful narrative to bring a story to life.

In my research for the best Middle Eastern Novels, I realized my sense of geography is a little off. Apparently, Afghanistan is not considered part of the Middle East but Central Asia. Though I decided to add them in anyways because how can you leave Khaled Hosseini off a list of Middle Eastern writers? His works are just too good to pass up.

While I do not claim to have any expertise on the Middle East, here are 20 popular books set in the Middle East that will give you a launching pad if you want to read more about the region.

The unforgettable story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy Afghan boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner beautifully describes love, friendship, betrayal, and redemption. Be warned that the novel is violent and graphic at times, so understand that while moving, the story is dark and disturbing. It’s that contrast between the worst of human nature and the best that truly brings out a remarkable tale that will stay with you for a long time.

Publication Date: 29 May 2003
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When her father unexpectedly dies, seven-year-old Ellie and her mother are thrust from the 1950s upper class in Tehran to live in a tiny home downtown. Ellie soon befriends Homa and the two girls are inseparable, sharing dreams of becoming “lion women” someday. After her family fortunes change, Ellie rejoins the wealthy ranks of society, becoming the most popular girl at her elite high school. Just as Iran is reaching a political breaking point, politically active Homa reappears in Ellie’s life causing a disruption that will change them both forever. Marjan Kamali paints a story of fierce female friendship set against three decades of the women’s movement in Iran and is a must-read among the books set in the Middle East.

Publication Date: 2 July 2024
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Great literature makes you rethink your assumptions, and the story of a woman pondering the events that sent her down a radical path and landed her in prison will do just that. Born in Kuwait to Palestinian refugees, Nahr has not had an easy life. Jilted by her husband, she becomes a prostitute to provide for her family. After being driven out of Kuwait when the US invades Iraq, Nahr resettles in Palestine, where she finally finds a home. A poignant tale for our times, Against the Loveless World hints at the grim realities of Palestinian life and highlights the combination of poor choices and awful circumstances that influence our lives.

Publication Date: 25 August 2020
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After her father dies from cancer in 2011, Nour’s family moves to Syria to be closer to his family. While adjusting to her new surroundings, Nour finds comfort in the tale of Rawiya, a twelfth-century girl who pretending to be a boy to work as a mapmaker’s apprentice. When the Syrian Civil war breaks out, Nour’s family decides to flee along the same route that Rawiya did all those centuries ago. A poignant tale that is a great read if you are looking for recent Middle Eastern novels to read.

Publication Date: 1 May 2018
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With her daughter Alia’s wedding approaching, Salma decides to read her fortune and learns that her daughter will have an unsettled life full of travel and luck. When the Six Days War breaks out in 1967, Salma’s family is scattered from the West Bank. Alia and her husband end up in Kuwait where they live until Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1990 scatters them again, showcasing one Palestinian families struggle navigating living in foreign lands.

Publication Date: 2 May 2017
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In 2007, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school or leave the house while living with their drug-addicted father. Since they have no brothers to act as escorts, Rahima adopts an ancient custom that lets her dress and live as a boy until she is of a marriageable age. Decades earlier, Rahima’s great-great-grandmother did the same after she was left orphaned by an epidemic. Following both women, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell discusses the freedom they experience in their youth and the sense of powerlessness as they grow older.

Publication Date: 6 May 2014
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Two thousand years ago, hundreds of Jews held out for months against the Roman army on Masada and only two women and five children are said to have survived. Alice Hoffman’s fictional account features four bold women at Masada: a woman blamed for her mother’s death in childbirth, a grandmother taking care of her traumatized grandsons, an expert warrior raised as a boy, and a practitioner of magic and medicine. Together, their lives intersect as the work as the fortress’s dovekeepers during the siege.

Publication Date: 4 October 2011
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Chris Bohjalian’s historical fiction novel describes the horrifying genocide of Armenians during World War I. Recent college graduate Elizabeth Endicott travels to Aleppo, Syria, with her father to deliver aid to the Armenians. Living at the American consulate and working in the hospital, she comes in first-hand contact with the suffering Armenians. There she befriends Armen, a young Armenian engineer whose wife and daughter were killed in the forced march across the desert.

Publication Date: 17 July 2012
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Amal is born in Jenin, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank where her family flees after losing their home at the establishment of Israel. In Jenin, the adults live on memories and dreams of returning home while Amal’s mother wallows in grief and her baby boy stolen away by an Israeli soldier. Abulhawa’s story follows Amal’s family for sixty years across the globe in a tale of motherhood, love, faith and forgiveness and is a can’t read among Middle Eastern writers.

Publication Date: 1 March 2006
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In a series of blog-like emails, an anonymous Saudi woman gives updates on the lives of four of her upper-middle class girlfriends and their struggles with love. Although the premise is contrived and the writing is solidly chick-lit, Girls of Riyadh belongs on an list of books set in the Middle East, praised for its honest look into the lives of privileged Saudi women caught between traditional Islamic culture and Western values.

Publication Date: 1 January 2005
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Khaled Hosseini writes the best books for club books and so I couldn’t leave him off a list of books about the Middle East. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini covers thirty years in Afghanistan, from the Soviet invasion to the post-Taliban years. Illegitimate child Mariam is forced to marry Rasheed, a man thirty years her elder. Stuck in a horrible marriage, Mariam’s life changes when they take in a teenage girl. Discussing family, friendship, and the struggle to survive, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a thought-provoking read.

Publication Date: 22 May 2007
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Celestial Bodies is a story of the lives of three sisters in an Omani village: Mayya, who marries after having her heart broken; Asma, who marries out of duty; and Khawla, who refuses to marry only desiring her love who emigrated to Canada. Through their lives, Alharthi paints a portrait of Oman changing from a traditional slave-owning society to the complex modern version.

Publication Date: 1 January 2010
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Palestinian Bassam Aramin and Israeli Rami Elhanan find a connection through grief when both have daughters killed by the ongoing conflict. United through tragedy, both hope to find a way towards peace. Based on a true story, McCann’s novel pieces together stories, literary quotes, biblical references and even art to convey the depth of grief felt by these two families.

Publication Date: 25 February 2020
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Living in Tehran in 1953, Roya is a dreamy idealistic teenage girl who finds refuge in the neighborhood stationery shop. When the shop owner introduces her to Brahman, his other favorite customer, a romance quickly blossoms. On the eve of their wedding, Roya and Brahman meet at the town square when violence erupts in the nation’s coup. Brahman vanishes and Roya must eventually move on with her life. Only sixty years later will she ever get the chance to find out what happened to her love.

Publication Date: 18 June 2019
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In eighteenth-century French-occupied Cairo, Nahri, a conwoman with a knack for healing, makes a living swindling Ottoman nobles. During one of her cons, Nahri accidentally summons an evil djinn and Dara, a sly djinn warrior. Forced to flee Cairo, Nahri and Dara journey across the desert to reach Daevabad, the legendary city of brass. Full of magic and adventure, The City of Brass is a fast-paced fantasy debut novel set in the Middle East.

Publication Date: 14 November 2017
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On the island of Cyprus, two teenagers, one Greek and one Turkish, fall in love under the lush fig tree at the local tavern. When war breaks out, Kostas and Defne are separated, but they never stop wondering what happened to each other. Years later, A woman in London tries to parse out the secrets of her family rooted in the fig tree that grows in her backyard.

Publication Date: 2 November 2021
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In the 1970s, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Kabul as the daughter of one of the President’s right-hand men. When the communist coup results in the murder of her entire family, Sitara escapes and is adopted by an American diplomat. Now a renowned surgeon, her world is rocked when the man who rescued her appears in her operating room, sending her on a search for answers.

Publication Date: 2 March 2021
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In a Middle Eastern country on the brink of civil war, fierce Nadia and gentle Saeed begin a romance, nestled securely in love as the city erupts around them. As violence escalates, they begin to hear rumors of doors with the ability to whisk you away to another part of the world. Yet as the world changes, so do Nadia and Saeed. With just a hint of magical realism, Exit West is a unique work of literary fiction that provokes more thoughts than emotions. Hamid dispassionately tells a tale of desperately clinging to the past while trying to forge a new future.

Publication Date: 7 March 2017
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In the Bible, the Book of Genesis tells the story of Jacob, who worked seven years for his wife Rachel but was tricked to marry her sister Leah. Diamant casts a different view of the story of Jacob and his four wives. Told in the voice of Jacob’s daughter Dinah, The Red Tent shows ancient Hebrew life from a woman’s perspective, imagining a fierce woman caught up in a patriarchal society.

Publication Date: 15 September 1997
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Following three generations of Palestinian women, Rum’s powerful story highlights the dangers of beliefs that view women as inferior. The tale begins with the arranged marriage of Isra, forced to move to America where she knows no one. Years later, Isra’s daughter Deya herself faces an arranged marriage in Brooklyn. This raw account of the oppression of women in an extremely strict family is depressing and at the same time beautifully written.

Publication Date: 8 February 2019
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Khaled Hosseini is a fabulous writer. In his third novel, Hosseini teaches how the choices we make can spread through time affecting so many others. To illustrate his theme, the main story centers on a poor family in a small Afghanistan village who gives their young daughter up for adoption to a wealthy family. Hosseini completely turns stereotypes on their head and makes you think about how much our actions reflect our intentions.

Publication Date: 21 May 2013
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What Are Your Favorite Books Set in the Middle East?

What do you think? Does this list of Middle Eastern novels make you want to visit someday? As always, let me know in the comments!

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