We Walked On (Paperback)

Set during the early years of Lebanon's fifteen-year civil war, We Walked On immerses readers in the landscape of war, weaving political unrest into everyday life. With Hisham, a thirty-year-old Arabic teacher, and Rita, his fourteen-year-old student, Chehade has created two richly drawn characters who counter violence with the redemptive power of books and human connection and find authentic hope in untenable circumstances. We Walked On is a timely novel that examines the power of war to pervert our moral sense and asks if peace is ever possible in an unjust world.
We Walked On won the 2024 Firebird Book Award in the coming-of-age category. It was longlisted for the 2022 Dzanc Prize for Fiction and was a semifinalist for the 2022 Noemi Press Prose Award.

Thérèse Soukar Chehade grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and moved to the United States in 1983. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her first novel, Loom, was published in 2010 by Syracuse University Press and won the 2011 Arab American Award for fiction. She lives in Granby, MA, and teaches English to multilingual language learners at a nearby public school.