Leila Abdelrazaq (b. 1992, Chicago) is a Palestinian author, artist, and cultural organizer.
Leila’s debut graphic novel Baddawi (PM Press, 2015) was shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards and has been translated into three languages. Her comic novella The Opening was published by Tosh Fesh (Beirut) in 2017. Leila's prints, zines, and artist books are housed in multiple public collections including the Arab American National Museum, The Center for Book Arts, and the Special Collections at the Met Museum Watson Library. Leila has exhibited her work, participated in residencies, and given talks and workshops around the world.
Leila has served as an invited guest editor for Mizna’s special Comix Issue as well as a juror for the 2018 Ignatz Awards. In 2019, she co-founded Maamoul Press, an award-winning, transnational independent arts and publishing project dedicated to uplifting by-us-for-us visual storytelling from SWANA communities and beyond. She co-organizes the Book Arts Solidarity Network, and also serves on the editorial collective for FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism.
Leila is currently a Ph.D. student in Art History, Theory, and Criticism + Art Practice at UC San Diego. Her scholarly work explores Palestinian visual culture and futurity, especially the role of art in configuring collective political imaginaries, and the importance of DIY practices and low(er) tech solutions in subverting technologies of occupation, surveillance, and state violence. She holds an MA in Modern Middle Eastern & North African Studies from the University of Michigan (2020).
Selected Publications
“Acts of Refusal: Performance, Grief, and Collective Dissent at the ISP.” FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, 2025.
“On Tattoos, Talismans, and the Sacred Palestinian Body.” Mophradat, 2025.
“Rifts in Palestinian Spacetime: Palestinian futurisms and imagining liberation beyond the nation-state.” Palestine, Visions and Imprints: Approaches to Histories of the Future, edited by Dr. Rania Jawad. Sharjah Art Foundation/The Palestinian Museum, 2025.
“A Higher Power.” The Funambulist 58, On Return, March-April 2025.
“The Dragonflies.” Mizna 25.1, The Catastrophe Issue, 2024.
“a burst of wind and light (or, things i’d like to imagine).” Michigan Quarterly Review 22(1), Decades of Fire, 2022.
“Disappearing in High Definition: Palestinian Archival Photography and National Imaginaries.” The Funambulist 29, States of Emergency, 2020.
“A Map of Silence, and the Spaces Between.” Kohl: a Journal for Gender and Body Research 6(1), 2020.
“Border Diary.” The Believer Magazine 120, The Music Issue, 2018.
The Opening (Tosh Fesh, Beirut, 2017)
Baddawi (PM Press, 2015). Korean: Hudd Books, Seoul, 2016; Arabic: Kalimat Group, Sharjah, 2017; French: Steinkis Editions, Paris, 2018; Australia: Hunter Publishers, Melbourne, 2019.
︎ As seen in: VICE, Hyperallergic, The New York Times, Salon, ThinkProgress, Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, and Al-Araby.
