The Hollow Half

A Memoir of Bodies and Borders

By: Sarah Aziza

Narrated by: Sarah Aziza

A brush with death. An ancestral haunting. A century of family secrets. Sarah Aziza’s searing, genre-bending memoir traces three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City—and back.

“You were dead, Sarah, you were dead.” In October 2019, Sarah Aziza, daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, is narrowly saved after being hospitalized for an eating disorder. The doctors revive her body, but it is no simple thing to return to the land of the living. Aziza’s crisis is a rupture that brings both her ancestral and personal past into vivid presence. The hauntings begin in the hospital cafeteria, when a mysterious incident summons the familiar voice of her deceased Palestinian grandmother.

In the months following, as she responds to a series of ghostly dreams, Aziza unearths family secrets that reveal the ways her own trauma and anorexia echo generations of violent Palestinian displacement and erasure—and how her fight to recover builds on a century of defiant survival and love. As she moves towards this legacy, Aziza learns to resist the forces of colonization, denial, and patriarchy both within and outside her.

Weaving timelines, languages, geographies, and genres, The Hollow Half probes the contradictions and contingencies that create “nation” and “history.” Blazing with honesty, urgency, and poetry, this stunning debut memoir is a fearless call to imagine both the self and the world anew.

©2025 Sarah Aziza (P)2025 Dreamscape Media

Amazing Book

This is an incredible story, the writing is so beautiful and the stories are heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing your life story with us.

Moving

I haven't finished this book yet but I am deeply moved and I'm sure I will finish it quickly. Free Palestine 🇵🇸

Thankful for Sarah and her ability to live and tell her story.

Thankful for Sarah and her ability to live and tell her story. I have heard the fighting in the background all of my life ...on the news in the US. it wasn't until I was in my 40s about 14 years ago that , I started to search and ask questions about Palestine. To all Palestinians, I am so sorry that our country has done this you all. I am sorry my tax dollars have been allowed to fund this harm against Palestinians. To Sarah, you are a brave young woman...there is almost nothing better than claiming your own life.

Truthful and beautiful!

After listening to this wonderful and educational book, if you do not sympathize and support the Palestinians and their cause, I’m sorry you are heartless.

the incredible writing and touching while revealing story

I absolutely loved this book and will share with others. it not only provides a revealing history of the author and her personal struggles with seismic, racism as a Palestinian and journey as a writer. absolutely exquisite and must be shared. Sarah is a very talented and wonderful woman with much to tell. May her story reach many...