Shirt a Phobia

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Sarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer, translator, and journalist.[1] Her work has appeared in outlets including The Guardian, Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker website, among others.[2] She is also a frequent contributor to The Nation.[3]

She is the author of the memoir The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders (Catapult, 2025). In 2025, The Hollow Half won the Memoire Award at the Palestine Book Awards;[4] in 2026, the book was named a finalist for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and the Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction.[5][6][7]

The Hollow Half

The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders was published by Catapult in 2025.

Reception

Mónica Teresa Ortiz of BookPage praised Aziza’s “stunning” prose and wrote that the memoir moves effortlessly across geographies, timelines, and languages.[8] The book also received positive reviews in Michigan Quarterly Review[9] and Publishers Weekly.[10] Library Journal gave the book a starred review.[11]

Awards and honors

Further reading

  • Democracy Now! (April 29, 2025) — interview with Aziza about The Hollow Half.[12]
  • The Nation — “Living With Fracture: A Conversation With Sarah Aziza”.[13]
  • People — essay/excerpt by Aziza related to The Hollow Half.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b “Sarah Aziza”. United States Artists. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  2. ^ “Sarah Aziza”. Pulitzer Center. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  3. ^ “Sarah Aziza”. The Nation. Retrieved March 8, 2026.
  4. ^ a b “Palestine Book Awards 2025: Winners Announced in London Ceremony”. Palestine Book Awards. November 15, 2025. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  5. ^ a b “Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Announces 2026 Finalists”. Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. March 3, 2026. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  6. ^ a b “2026 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award finalists explore race through different lenses”. WYSO. March 3, 2026. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  7. ^ a b “Announcing the Finalists for the 38th Lambda Literary Awards”. Lambda Literary. March 18, 2026. Retrieved March 19, 2026.
  8. ^ “The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders — Book Review”. BookPage. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  9. ^ “Survival: A Review of The Hollow Half by Sarah Aziza”. Michigan Quarterly Review. January 2026. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  10. ^ “The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders”. Publishers Weekly. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  11. ^ “The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders”. Library Journal. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  12. ^ ““The Hollow Half”: Palestinian American Sarah Aziza on Gaza, Generational Trauma, Anorexia & Exile”. Democracy Now!. April 29, 2025. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  13. ^ “Living With Fracture: A Conversation With Sarah Aziza”. The Nation. Retrieved March 5, 2026.
  14. ^ “When I Started Writing About Anorexia, I Felt Erased. Now, I’m Telling the Whole Story On My Own Terms (Exclusive)”. People. May 14, 2025. Retrieved March 5, 2026.