Marguerite Dabaie

Marguerite Dabaie is a Palestinian-American illustrator and comic book artist. She is the author of the graphic novel The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories and the fantasy novel Legends in the Heights.

Early life and education Dabaie was raised in San Francisco. Her grandparents were from Palestine. Dabaie attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, graduating in 2007. She is also an editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. After over 10 years working on the illustrations that make up the book, Dabaie obtained 2 grants which allowed the book to be published in 2018. The same year, she illustrated a short story in the book PANDEMIX: Quarantine Comics in the Age of ‘Rona.

Critical reception Of her book, The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories, the Routledge Handbook on Women in the Middle East said "Dabaie explores themes such as ethnic belonging... non-conformity to “traditional” gender roles, and her incompetence at seemingly banal tasks her Palestinian family members effortlessly perform.

Meanwhile, researcher Dr. Dekel Shay Schory, speaking to Haaretz, said Dabaie "write about [her] divided identity and about what it is like to be Palestinian in the U.S. [Her] social commentary is not directed at the Arab world, but at the way in which American society has been viewing them".

Works

Legends in the Heights (2026) Andrews McMeel Publishing. Pandemix (2020). Wonder Women of History (2020) DC Comics. The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories. (2018) Rosarium Publishing. Dabaie, Margueritte. "Nell's women." The Women's Review of Books, July–August 2010, 17. Unsichtbares/Sichtbares: Your Guide to Fashionable Living