Elena Dudum

One woman’s journey as she returns—slowly, deliberately—to her father’s lessons, determined to claim them on her own terms.

“A heartfelt discovery of homeland and self.”

— Kirkus

“A poignant debut.”

— Publisher's Weekly

“An unflinching reclamation of self”

— Poets & Writers

"Elena Dudum made a puddle of me, and the memoir genre, with this tonally distinct, absolutely riveting offering. Dudum summons new ways to write through home, to write to home, and she questions the ways we can use journeys home as an eraser of self. The work in They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful feels infinite, genreless, almost, but so in the pocket. This is that good work."

—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
"A powerful work of nonfiction that serves as a meditation on living in a politicized body, a reckoning with one’s home(land), an unflinching reclamation of self that both confronts and resists erasure, and an evolving ode to one’s father and inheritance."

— Poets & Writers
"This book is a moving rumination on how Dudum came to understand what it means to be Palestinian throughout her life—in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of her family, and within herself."

—Samia Saliba, Mizna
"In this thoughtful memoir of the Palestinian diasporic experience Dudum examines her stark awakening, as a second-generation American, to the realities of the Occupation of Palestine. Dudum captures the unique pain of seeing the destruction of one’s heritage livestreamed and rendered forever out of reach by the intractable forces of empire.”

—Jonny Diamond, LitHub Most Anticipated of 2026
"With They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful, Dudum manages to tell a deeply personal, beautifully honest story that is hers alone, and yet will touch the hearts of all children of diaspora who are trying to find their way home. This book is a love letter to the land and people that we carry in our hearts and the people who insist on being a beacon, lighting our way back to ourselves."

—Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want To Talk About Race
"Elena Dudum's They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful is an exquisite and masterful memoir that powerfully traces her quest to uncover her family's Palestinian history. Weaving incisive research and vivid storytelling, Dudum journeys across archives, landscapes, language, memory, and her own heart, laying bare the enduring, intergenerational wounds of colonial violence, displacement, exile, and genocide. Ultimately, Dudum illuminates that telling a true story is not merely about finding proof or validation. It is a fierce and loving act of reclaiming what has been stolen, silenced, and erased, and protecting what endures."

—Nadia Owusu, author of Aftershocks

ABOUT ME

Elena Dudum is a Palestinian-American writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, TIME, Cosmopolitan, and Bon Appétit, among others. She was awarded a Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2025 for They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful, as well as the 2024 LANDO Grant from The de Groot Foundation. She has received additional support from Hedgebrook, Tin House, and Sewanee. Born in San Francisco, she now lives between New York and London.