Lunch and Learn: "Daughters of Palestine" by Leyla K. King

Co-presented with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights

This fall, grab your favorite lunch at noon and tune in to virtual conversations with the Prince George’s County Office of Human Rights and the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System on topics from repairing the effects of racial injustice to fighting for equitable access to recovering from exile and loss. Let’s learn together!

Lunch and Learn returns with special guest Leyla K. King in conversation with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights and the Prince George's County Memorial Library System discussing her new book, "Daughters of Palestine: A Memoir in Five Generations."

Registration not required. Click on the YouTube video linked below to stream the program live or watch the recording later.

About the Book:

From Palestine to Texas in 100 years, this epic family tale follows five generations of Christian women as their family’s intimate dramas—full of hope, fear, grief, and joy— play out against a backdrop of violence that would rip them from their homeland.

Leyla King has been a keeper of family stories since long before she sat down across from her grandmother with a tiny cassette tape recorder. And in this beautifully crafted memoir, she braids matriarchal memory into a vivid saga of love and survival as her ancestors flee war and poverty. From Haifa to Ramallah, Damascus, Beirut, and finally Texas, Leyla makes global politics deeply personal as family squabbles, ambition, mental illness, romance, and religion shape their immigrant journey. Narrated in immersive, lyrical vignettes, Daughters of Palestine is both an urgent testimony from Palestinian Christians and a timeless story of resilience.
 
“We start with laughing now. Now, in the comfort of my own home, with steaming cups of tea before us and the promise of the cookies I made yesterday awaiting us in the kitchen, we share these stories, to be recorded and retained and remembered, with joy and thankfulness. But it wasn’t always that way. There was much suffering, too. To get to this place, this moment, with Leylati, there was first pain and heartache and so much loss. . . . We start with laughing now, but before that, first, there was Za’leh.”

About the author: 

Leyla K. King is a Palestinian American Episcopal priest and writer. She is a founding member of Palestinian Anglicans and Clergy Allies (Palestiniananglicans.org) and The Small Churches Big Impact Collective (smallchurchesbigimpact.org). Currently, she serves as the Canon for Mission in Small Congregations for the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.