Paradiso 17: A Novel

by Hannah Lillith Assadi

The intimate, sweeping tale of one man’s restless search for home the world over, as the pendulum of fate swings between loss and life, grief and euphoria, regret and hope

All his life, exile has been the shadow stitched to the sole of Sufien’s shoe.

Born in Palestine on the precipice of 1948’s Nakba, Sufien is forced to leave the only home he’s ever known, the one on the hill with a beautiful blue door. This is the precise moment when time stops making sense. He spends the rest of his life propelled forward, always on the way—although in search of what, he is never quite sure. In the dusty, oil-rich desert of Kuwait, he meets his first love and decides he must leave his family. In a small Italian university town, he spends his youth wrapped up in the sweet promise of the West and the forgetful assurance of wine. When life takes him to a gritty New York, he discovers his true vocation and falls for a Jewish woman born into a wholly different world. Finally, he finds himself recalled to the wild, vast open skies of the desert, in Arizona.

Sufien’s life spans friendships lost and maintained, a stint selling leathers at a tanner’s stall, the ineffable company of cats, and the freedom of the open road, the glowing pride of fatherhood, Sufi myths, prophetic dreams, and visions of the afterlife—and always, always, no matter how far he chases joy, the sweet, treacherous song of a balcony urging him to fly, to fall, to fall. The lyrical pages of Paradiso 17 weave in and out of time and space, beginning at the end and ending at the beginning. They are haunting, haunted with grief, struck through, as Dante once wrote, with “the arrow that the bow of exile / shoots first,” and yet they throb with light—not just the light that Sufien sees as he approaches his own end, but the brilliant light of a life lived.

Like all of our dead, Sufien still speaks, the book begins. Listen, this is his story.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Middle East, Historical, Novels

296 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 17, 2026

About the author

Hannah Lillith Assadi received her MFA in fiction from the Columbia University School of the Arts. She also attended Columbia University for her bachelor's where she received the Philolexian Prize for her poetry and fiction and graduated summa cum laude. She was raised in Arizona and now lives in Brooklyn. Sonora is her first novel.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

i don't know what to say about this yet...review to come.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

One man’s life, a life in exile, heartbreaking and beautifully told. I was taken in at the prologue, the writing so lovely I had to read it again. The man Safien, speaking as he is dead, then moving forward as he is dying and then moving back in time to where his story begins taking us to the fateful day when he is five in 1948 when the war the war began and he was exiled from Palestine , the home he’d never see again. His journey from Palestine to Damascus to Kuwait, to Italy, New York and Arizona, alone, lonely, searching for his place is heartbreaking. It was difficult to read as Safien never seemed to find a home to give him a sense of belonging. A slow burn, but ultimately finding friendship, love, a family, through these hard times. Maybe that was enough to call home. The author expresses gratitude to her father, whose story she told him she would tell.

My only complaint was having to look up the meaning so many Arabic words and phrases . After a while in stopped looking them up as it interrupted my reading and I assumed the meaning of some of them. A moving and eye opening story of what the refugee experience might be like.


I received a copy of this from Knopf through NetGalley.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+
I really enjoyed this story based on the life of the author’s father.
At the start of the novel Sufien is already dead and dreaming.
In 1948 at 5 yrs old his family flees Palestine because of the Nakba (an ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s Arabs by Israel)
From there starts his lifes journey… refuge camp, Kuwait, Italy, New York, Arizona and then back to New York at the end of his life.. he leads such an interesting life..has many friends, takes on a few different identities in the different countries, he is funny, smart, humorous, charming… marries a Jew and has his own family, but is always looking to find his true home.
A very touching read

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this gifted ebook in exchange for my honest review!

[Chris Metts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous. Heartbreaking. Brimming with hope.

[Tini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exile, elegy, and extraordinary grace.

"Like all of our dead, Sufien still speaks."

That opening line alone tells you something about Paradiso 17: this is a novel interested in memory, inheritance, and the ways a life can continue to echo long after it ends.

Hannah Lillith Assadi's remarkable novel follows Sufien, a Palestinian man displaced as a child during the Nakba, who spends the rest of his life moving through countries, identities, loves, and losses in search of something that remains just out of reach: home. From Palestine to Kuwait, Italy to New York, and eventually Arizona, his life becomes a restless journey shaped as much by longing as by geography.

This book was an absolute marvel. Haunting and tender, funny and heartbreaking, Paradiso 17 captures the emotional reality of exile with extraordinary depth. Sufien is not simply searching for a place on a map, but for belonging, for continuity, for some answer to the rupture that defined his childhood. That tension gives the novel its emotional force, even as it moves across decades and continents.

The writing is luminous throughout - lyrical without becoming precious, expansive without losing intimacy. Assadi writes with tremendous compassion, allowing Sufien to be flawed, searching, contradictory, and deeply human.

What impressed me most is how alive the novel feels despite being so steeped in grief. It is full of sorrow, yes, but also humor, desire, absurdity, warmth, and wonder. It understands that even lives marked by displacement are still made up of ordinary joys, strange encounters, fleeting happiness, and love.

The audiobook, beautifully narrated by Noor Hamdi, is a wonderful way to experience the novel. Her performance carries both the intimacy and sweep of the story, grounding its emotional depth while honoring the lyricism of the prose. She gives Sufien's voice warmth, dignity, and soul.

An extraordinary, luminous novel about exile, belonging, and the life that unfolds in between.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paradiso 17 opens with Sufien in his final days, recalling a life of multiple displacements. Fleeing Palestine in 1948 with his father, Sufien initially lives in a Syrian refugee camp, then moves to Kuwait, Italy, New York, and Arizona. The book is structured as a series of arrivals and departures, with Sufien constantly searching for place to call home.

Sufien is charming, witty, and genuinely appealing, but over time, he develops bad habits with drinking, infidelity, and poor financial decisions. His best friend Bernardo is Jewish; so is his wife Sarah. These relationships occasionally produce conflict, but also tenderness. The people in Sufien's life see him clearly and love him anyway, which makes his self-destruction all the more devastating.

I particularly enjoyed Assadi's lyrical writing style: “Scattered saguaro lay dead, like the fallen in war, contorted and broken. Others lifted their arms in praise, and beholding them, Sufien understood why it felt like home. The desert was in exile from the Earth itself." Throughout the novel, Assadi sustains this delicate tension between beauty and suffering.

The book was inspired by Assadi's own father. Sufien's story touches on the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral homes. He deals with cancer, prejudice, financial ruin, and an ongoing sense that the place he was born no longer exists for him. Paradiso 17 is not overtly political. It is more subtle than that, but it feels relevant.

[Sophia Eck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paradiso 17 tells the tragic but persevering story of Sufien, a displaced Palestinian man, and his endless search for a home when he is not able to return to his true one. Despite its inherent importance as a story to be told and explored, I did ultimately find the book itself to be quite dragging and weirdly fragmented, especially the many inclusions of endings of relationships spoiled probably in order to not have to be followed up on later, which made the story feel dragging and too long when these many plot points were essentially already given an end and wrapped up for you. The timeline felt very jumpy, big timelines just brushed over in favor of heavy interior thought by Sufien that got very repetitive over time. I also found the writing to be awkward at many points, the phrasing of certain sentences coming across a bit strangely, or moments where it felt like words were missing that would’ve made the sentence or metaphor make sense? And finally, I did find the bulk of the characters to all be quite one dimensional and dull to read, all of their stories very brief and their personalities very bland, really only providing shallow stepping stones in Sufien’s narrative, especially the women, many of whom were just there for him to have sex with and then ditch. I think this book could be improved so much if it was more linearly laid out and without the spoilers, edited down a bit to be more focused on the actual integral characters and giving them more depth, and overall needed to get rid of quite a few of the repetitive or non-integral chapters. It definitely has a lot of potential to be a deeply impactful book, just in my opinion needed more precision and focus.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

It feels so good to weep at the end of a novel

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reads like a modern classic, absolutely beautiful and expertly wrought this is a portrait of the singularity of experience, and how familial intimacy is impacted by global history and displacement. I’ll be recommending this to a lot of people

[Debbie H · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️ Beginning with Sufien’s death in NYC this story takes us on a journey of his life from age 5 beginning in his Palestinian homeland with the exile of his family. He sets out at 17 hoping for a better life.

This expansive tale takes us on a journey of searching for a home through Italy, NYC, Arizona, and back to NYC. Sufien forever longing for a place in the world and never feeling complete or belonging.
The ending takes us back to the beginning with his death and is very touching.

This book is based on the author’s father and his experiences. How many refugees live out their lives feeling this way, missing a home that is forever lost, always searching for that place to land?


Thank you NetGalley and Fourth Estate Publishers for the eARC in exchange for my honest review

[Novel Visits · Rating 4 out of 5]

𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗢 𝟭𝟳 by Hannah Lillith Assadi [#gifted from @aaknopf and @prhaudio]⁣
⁣
𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰 𝟷𝟽 is the life story of just one man. In some ways you might call Sufien’s life normal. He has friends, leaves home for university, goes through a string of jobs, marries, has a child, makes mistakes. The things that happen in a life, but in Sufien’s life everything is shadowed by the fact that he was forced to leave his homeland of Palestine while still a child. From the moment he became a refugee, a dark shadow always hung over his life. This book tells his story of trying, but never quite succeeding, to get out from under that shadow and find a new home where he truly belongs.⁣
⁣
I found this to be a beautifully written and touchingly told story. The narration by Noor Hamdi enriched Assadi’s words. I enjoyed my experience with 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰 𝟷𝟽, even though I cannot say I loved it. It’s like when you appreciate a remarkable painting, but wouldn’t want it in your house. I’ve no doubt the picture Assadi painted of the long lasting effects of being ejected from your homeland was very true to life. I was always aware of that and often hurt for Sufien. Still, this is a depressing book and I’m in no way saying that it should have been anything else. I just wasn’t quite expecting so much sadness.⁣
⁣
I’m sure you’ve gathered that my feelings on this one are complicated, making rating it difficult. For the writing / storytelling I’d want to give it 4.5 stars, but for how the book left me feeling, it would be more like 3.5 stars. With that, I can only take the average, even though that doesn’t feel quite right either. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️’s

Paradiso 17 has a man at its center who can’t find home anywhere, not in a country, not in a body, not in himself. That’s the novel I wanted.

I got close to it a few times.

Sufien annoyed me. Genuinely.
The arrogance, the control, the performance of himself, I felt the machinery before I felt the man.
And for most of the book, Assadi keeps us at the same distance Sufien keeps everyone else.

But then he’s dying.

And something loosens. You start to feel what’s underneath all that posturing, a man who wanted to live, who was profoundly unsatisfied, who spent his whole life trying to get back to somewhere he couldn’t name.
His displacement isn’t backdrop.
It’s the wound.
He couldn’t find home in Palestine, couldn’t find it in wherever he landed, couldn’t find it inside himself.
So everything became a disaster.

Those moments are what the book is capable of. Assadi can pull you into a man like that. She does it. (And her writing IS beautiful).

Then she pulls back.

The novel keeps circling its own center. You can feel what it’s reaching for, something intimate, something true about what it costs to live unmoored.
But, for me, it checks its boxes and moves on before the feeling has anywhere to go.

I didn’t need more plot.
I needed more entry.

There’s a deeper novel inside this one. I kept waiting for it to come through.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I loved about this book was the way the theme of exile and yearning flows subtly through this book in unexpected ways. Sufien, who flees Palestine with his mother and siblings as a young boy, is never whole again. He is always searching for "home" and at times believes he's found it in a woman or a place, but never lastingly. The book is also provocative - Sufien is a dreamer, charming, but ultimately a bad friend, a bad husband and a loving but not always present father. He makes self-defeating choices time and again and his poor decisions repeatedly land his family in crisis. Often I found myself asking, do the scars of exile explain this? Or is he a weak man who is also an exile? The book doesn't offer easy answers - after all, it's largely based on the author's father, clearly loved, but also seen for what he is, and real life is seldom tidy.

What I loved less was the lack of depth given to any character but Sufien. Women in particular come and go through Sufien's life, and his wife (and one other) stick around but we never really get a sense of what motivates them. Often they seem like caricatures (a "JAP", a whore, a stripper, a rich girl). Even the author's mother, Sufien's wife, seems largely undeveloped, a Jewish girl from rural Alabama of all things who winds up supporting her husband and sticking by him through thick and a lot of thin. We never get a good sense of why.

All in all though, an effective novel about the elegiac nature of nostalgia and grief, whether it is for a homeland, or a father.

[Léa Skov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t really enjoy it, a lot of self spoiling all the time kind of took me out of the story, really hate when writers do that. Also the way the main character treated women and just the way the roles of women were described in the novel was super outdated and weird at one point it even says this to describe a scene in New York: “Sufien watched the morning rush, the men in their grey suits, the secretaries in their smart skirts, and the strollers, the moms and the nannies, and all the beautiful children.”

Very stereotypical and a tad patriarchal which I understand to set the time of the 80s /90s but really not needed. Moreover, when she describes Sufien smoking on the plane it also just felt like it was there just to remind us of when the novel is taking place, just felt lazy there are other ways to describe that particular setting.

However there were a few beautiful passages that I really liked but not enough to save the story.

“Though he couldn’t name it, he could feel it, that losing home is the closest approximation we have for losing our bodies. To be a refugee is to be nearly apparitional.”

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving work of historical fiction based on the life of the author’s father. PARADISO 17 is one of those books that just snuck up on me. Perhaps because of its many layers and settings, ranging from Palestine to Italy to Arizona, I initially found the story and main character Sufien hard to connect with. By about the middle,however, I couldn’t put this down and cared so deeply for Sufien, having warmed up to his curmudgeonly nature. This book also covers important themes about home, war, genocide and displacement, and it was interesting to see the complexities of Sufien’s relationship with his wife, Sarah, who is Jewish. Another strong novel that was longlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize. I continue to enjoy reading through all of the contenders.

[BAM who is Beth Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading through the long list for women’s prize 2026

This is one of those books that’s hard to talk about because it’s so layered, but it completely worked for me. I would give it all the stars if I could.

It’s devastating and beautiful at the same time. The story unfolds through flashbacks, slowly revealing Sufien’s life, not in a straight line, but in fragments that build on each other. That structure really fits who he is: a man who is always in motion, never fully settled, never quite living up to what he could be, and never entirely at peace with himself.

Sufien is a complicated character in the best way. He’s frustrating at times, a bit of a contradiction, someone who struggles with stability, not because he doesn’t want it, but because he can’t quite seem to hold onto it. yet the book treats him with so much compassion. That’s what makes it work. He’s not reduced to his flaws. He has friendships, love, a perspective on the world. He feels fully human, even when he’s difficult to understand.

There’s also a quiet emotional weight running through the whole book. It’s not dramatic or heavy-handed, but it lingers. The writing has a kind of restraint to it that makes the moments of connection and loss hit harder.

This isn’t a plot-driven book, and it’s not trying to be. It’s much more about a life…what it means to drift, to search, to belong and not belong at the same time. It asks you to sit with those themes, and if you’re willing to, it’s incredibly rewarding.

I loved this story for its emotional, cultural and moral complexity, its tenderness, and the way it resonates long after you finish it.

[Lee by the Light ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off strong and I was genuinely enjoying it. The writing felt strong and often very poetic. But after about a third of the way through, it completely lost me. The main character’s life and behavior became more destructive, the tone and language of the book shifted as well. The way he treats, uses, and degrades women, along with abusive behavior toward a partner, made him someone I couldn’t respect or sympathize with. I couldn’t care less about this type of person or their story. Not for me.

[Priya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a beautifully written book about one man's yearning for his home after being forced into exile. Poignant and heartbreaking, it contains some of the most lyrical prose I have read.

Sufien and his family flee their family home in Safad,Palestine when he is just 5 after the nakba in 1948. They settle in Damascus and then move to Kuwait but Sufien's restlessness is ever present. He decides to study in Italy where he ends up working in Florence. He makes friends, manages to build a life and eventually moves to America where he even marries and has a family.

Inspite of all these attempts at a normal life he never quite feels at home and is constantly searching for that feeling of belonging. He constantly misses his family and grapples with the guilt and despair of being away from them and the knowledge that none of them will ever see their true home again. He cannot really settle down and despite trying his hand at multiple careers and achieving success, he is very unstable financially and every other way.

The use of Arabic words to describe Sufien's inner thoughts portrays his love for a place that is in his blood even though he left it so many years ago. The author has said that this story was inspired by her father's life and she has so wonderfully captured the pain that comes with life long exile from home irrespective of the quality of life that one leads outside that home.

This was easily one of my favourite reads from the Women's fiction prize longlist this year.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a novel without flaws and the writing is nothing extraordinary. Still, as a whole it really works.

Inspired by her father's life, Hannah Lilith Assadi tells the story of an immigrant from Palestine who - via Italy - ends up pretty much by coincidence (and pretty much lost) in the US.

Because it spans the entire life of Sufien we have the full picture and can take stock, which then brings up questions to ponder over, especially about emigration and immigration, but also about loneliness.

I found the final parts very well done. Perhaps the fact that the author actually experienced the decline and disease of her father made it more impactful than the preceding sections which she must have pieced together from anecdotes, friends and family.

As an audiobook this works ok, but takes some time to get into it as the narrator chooses to go for a flat, melancholic tone...also a bit a shame they couldn't find one who properly pronounces Italian words.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
Another great choice for the women’s prize for fiction and an excellent audible, the book is on library hold. It’s obvious why this was chosen - well written poetic prose, international themes of displacement, alienation, loss, identity and serious illness. There is also a quest that the main protagonist achieves in an unusual fashion. It’s visceral and realistic - the author cites Toni Morrison as an influence. I also found it very educative and shows how the power of fiction can convey a political narrative. A true ‘journey’ with a symbolic blue door

[fiyin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 Started so so well and then I just wasn’t enjoying it anymore and really struggled through it. The last several chapters saved my review honestly.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

tl;dr the complex story of a Palestinian man's displacement after the Nakba is rendered simply and poetically; it wants to hit harder than its story and structure allow, but Paradiso 17 is still a worthwhile journey

He was bound for the West now, and in the West, time was lonely, it moved ahead in a single direction.

The Arabic word "nakba" means "catastrophe", and has become part of the Palestinian; on the side of Israel, it's framed as a "fight for independence"; in the end, it necessitates displacement. As the vulgarity of numbers prevents us from even comprehending the human impact of the Nakba and beyond, the best we can do is to zero in on the individual, the story of a single person's displacement, and the journey of a life haunted by the echoes of the loss of homeland.

Paradiso 17, named after a section of Dante's Divine Comedy that outlines exile and loss, tells the story of Sufien, and in the novel's prologue, he's already passed on, the story to come a reflection of the entirety of his life. There are details in Paradiso 17 that mirror the life of author Hannah Lillith Assadi's own, and it's hard not to consider this novel to be at least, in part, a tribute to the author's father's life.

And what a wondrous, moving tribute it is. Assadi paints Sufien as a deeply complex character, who is impulsive, succumbs to vices, and has to live daily with the stress of being exiled from home at a very young age. Assadi moves through Sufien's life in a primarily linear fashion, but as the above quote suggests, the future (especially the irony of Sufien's bitter death) does intrude to punctuate the journey as a whole. But the progression of Sufien's life is marked by the different places that he tries to settle into, to some degree:

It was terrifying enough to be without money in one's own country. All he had were his refugee papers and his student visa. Having found nothing, Sufien walked out. And he kept walking through the city, hoping the city might have the answer he sought...That is what is people always did when things became bad. They walked.

This doesn't make for a particularly riveting plot, however, as most of what this book concerns is how Sufien is going to get to his next place, and the next place, and so on. His desperation to be autonomous and his inability to deal with relationshops really comes to a head in the last third of the novel, where the Nakba's lasting effects lead to a catastrophe everywhere. Sufien is hard to root for, but I think that's the point; in portraying this character with such stark honesty, Assadi more effectively explores what happens when displacement meets the ghost of the "American Dream".

While parts of this novel are certainly moving, I don't think that the structure and story allow it to hit as hard as it clearly wants to. Instead of a journey, it occasionally feels like the summary of a life, as though parts of this book were edited out. The idea of a "character arc" is largely cast aside here, as Sufien's life is a protracted deterioration. Still, I do think it's worth experiencing, and as a tribute to the author's father, more than worthy.

[Karen Armendariz · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started off incredibly strong. The opening chapters captured a man’s final moments in a a very poetic and reflective way. I liked how the early sections about his passing were connected to his birth and his family roots in Palestine. Great chapters to reflect on someone’ beginning and end of life.

As the book went on, it began to lose its momentum. The structure and writing felt fragmented, with characters appearing and disappearing without much depth, which made the story feel disjointed. I also struggled to connect with the characters, including Saif, as most of them came across as unlikable, making it hard to stay invested in their stories, particularly when the plot was already a bit weak.

The book also tries to touch on too many heavy topics, but without giving them the appropriate depth. As a result, some important topics are made to feel irrelevant when in reality they are important to topics.

I also did not like the portrayal of women. Even considering that the story is filtered through a flawed perspective, some of the language and framing felt unnecessary and at times came across as chauvinistic.

Overall, the central themes of forced displacement from Palestine , and longing for one’s homeland are powerful, and some chapters do them justice, but it just didn’t happen throughout the book

[imogen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think this is a 3.5 rounded up. while i really enjoyed many aspects of this story - connection to home, the losing of yourself and body to colonialism - i thought some parts lagged a little and i had to make an effort to keep reading. i enjoyed how expansive it was but it almost could've been more epic and poetic, the plain writing style made for a clear narrative but didn't create 'beautiful' lines, apart from the quotes from the qur'an and other holy texts. you can tell that the author has tried to humanise her father but not absolve him, and that does come across very strongly. my favourite part was the first half and the last two or three chapters.

[Books By Your Bedside · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a huge fan of "literary" books overall, you know the ones that make you work for it. And this sounded like it was going to be that way but it wasn't. That's not to say it's not a clever book, because it is. But I loved it. It's so lyrical and poetical. I've not read her books before but her use of language is first class. I knew from the prologue it would be tough to read without crying and safe to say I failed that. The one thing stopping it from being perfect is that there's no speech marks, and I hate it when there's no speech marks. For me, it adds nothing to a book and takes away so much.

[Marie Ryon · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sufien never understood power, the way human beings played with each other like dispensable toys."

[Oscreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous novel!

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this down, wondering what would happen to Suffien. Despite him being a bit of a loser and unlikable character, the author still made you care about him and I cried so much at the end. A beautiful and sad story about losing your home and never being able to find a new one.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5