Hala Alyan

Hala Alyan (born July 27, 1986) is a Palestinian-American writer and clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, addiction, and cross-cultural behavior. Her writings and poetry cover aspects of identity and the effects of displacement, particularly within the Palestinian diaspora. Alyan is best known for her first novel, the 2017 work Salt Houses.

Hala Alyan was born in Carbondale, Illinois, on July 27th, 1986. Her family lived in Kuwait after her birth but sought political asylum in the United States when Iraqi forces invaded the country. Alyan received her doctorate in clinical psychology at Rutgers University and works part-time at New York University in the Counseling and Wellness Center.She and her husband live in Brooklyn.

Alyan's Atrium: Poems received an award from the Arab American National Museum in 2013.

In Alyan's novel, Salt Houses, the Yacoub family, a Palestinian family, is forced to leave their home but after settling in Kuwait are forced to leave again during the invasion by Sadam Hussein.

Alyan's poems have been published in journals and literary magazines.

She was a visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris in the fall of 2018.

In 2018 she won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, an award given to writers whose writing is believed to promote peace.

The Twenty-Ninth Year, a collection of Alyan's poems will be published by Mariner in January 2019.