The Necklace of Seven Souls

The Necklace of Seven Souls

$18.00

by Hooda Shawa

Translated from the Arabic by Nour Jaljuli and Sawad Hussain

Two Palestinian teenagers discover secrets that change all they thought they knew about their family histories, and their own futures.

Hardcover ISBN: 9781632064073
Publication date: September 1, 2026

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Farida is a talented young painter who recreates European masterpieces under the patronizing eye of a Parisian art dealer. Mazen just arrived in France to hunt for a lost family heirloom. When the two meet during a chance encounter at the Louvre museum, they discover a shared history between their grandmothers, both of whom fled Palestine during the Nakba in 1948. Drawn to one another, Mazen and Farida join forces to unearth their past, but a shadowy ring of art forgers has its sights set on Farida. Can she unravel the mystery before it's too late?

Exploring what it means to live in diaspora, The Necklace of Seven Souls moves from Paris to Haifa, from Aleppo to Tangier, conjuring the jewel tones of the Mediterranean and the bittersweet taste of memory.

Praise for The Necklace of Seven Souls

"Provides a space of hope and optimism for the continuity of young generations and their ability to move forward, demolish stereotypes, break down barriers, and find the identities that resemble them."

— Faten Al-Jamal and Mohamed Al-Zaqzouq, Ultra Sawt

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hooda Shawa was born in the U.K. to a Palestinian father and an English mother. She now lives in Kuwait with her husband and two children, and teaches English as a Second Language at Kuwait University. She has a BA in Economics and an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language. She is currently pursuing a degree in Comparative Literature.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATORs

Nour Jaljuli is a translator and poet traversing between the worlds of Arabic and English. She holds an MA in literary translation from the University of East Anglia and is the Arabic translator of Rana Dajani’s Five Scarves. Her English translations have appeared in ArabLit, Middle East Eye, and the 2022 UEA MALT Anthology for which she was also co-editor.

Sawad Hussain is a translator from Arabic whose work has been recognised by English PEN, the Anglo-Omani Society and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, among others. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the 2023 National Translation Award. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library, and the National Centre for Writing. Her most recent translations include Black Foam by Haji Jaber (AmazonCrossing) and What Have You Left Behind by Bushra al-Maqtari (Fitzcarraldo Editions). She was selected to be the Princeton Translator in Residence in 2025. She is based in Cambridge, U.K. and her website is sawadhussain.com.