Abulhawa is a Palestinian American writer and activist. She is the author of a collection of poetry titled My Voice Sought the Wind (2013) in addition to three novels, Mornings in Jenin (2010), The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015), and Against the Loveless World (2020). Apart from her writing, she is involved in animal advocacy and human rights work related to various Palestinian causes, among them Al Awda (the Right to Return Coalition) and Playgrounds for Palestine, which she founded. She is a vocal critic of the Israeli government and its army, and has been active within the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Abulhawa’s parents, both born in East Jerusalem, were refugees of the 1967 war. They fled first to Jordan and then to Kuwait, where Abulhawa was born in 1970. Her parents’ marriage was brief and turbulent, and they divorced when Abulhawa was still young. She spent her childhood moving between Kuwait, Jordan, the United States, and Palestine, and this kind of diasporic migration is an important focal point in Abulhawa’s writing. Prior to dedicating herself to writing full-time, Abulhawa had a career in biomedical sciences as a researcher for a large pharmaceutical company.