They Fell Like Stars from the Sky & Other Stories

Celebrate the courage and resilience of Bedouin women and girls of Palestine in this illustrated collection of 18 short stories translated from Arabic.

Glimpse vivid portraits of life on the margins of society: a world of intricate cultural taboos, the tender innocence of growing up, the heart-wrenching tragedies entwined with love.

Meet young girls exploring womanhood with endearing curiosity and a woman whose tattoo defies sexual norms. Witness the tragic fallout of a husband consumed by jealousy over his wife’s teenage love and the euphoric passion of an elderly woman’s love for football.

These sometimes-witty, sometimes-harrowing narratives are packed with an emotional power that lingers far beyond the last word.

Sheikha Helawy was born in an unrecognised Bedouin village near Haifa before moving to Jaffa, Israel. She is a lecturer in Arab Feminism at Ben Goreon University and also writes fiction and poetry. Her work has been translated into German, French and Bulgarian, and she was awarded an Arabic short story award in 2019-20.