Author Guide ·
Books Written by
Hankir is a Lebanese-British journalist who has spent her career making room for voices the Western press usually talks over or talks about instead of to. Her work as an editor and writer moves between reported nonfiction and anthology-building — assembling the essays of other women reporting from inside the region rather than parachuting in to summarize it herself.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 books · Journalism · Essays · Investigative Journalism · Updated August 2026
Essays · JournalismOn my shelf
Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World
Hankir gathers nineteen essays by Arab and Middle Eastern women journalists — the sahafiyat — writing about what it actually takes to report from inside the region during wars, revolutions, and their aftermaths, often while navigating both the danger of the story and the specific risks of being a woman covering it. Foreword by Christiane Amanpour.
Hankir’s editorial premise is precise: Western correspondents fly in for a year or two and then write the authoritative account, while the women who actually live in these places and report on them for decades rarely get the same platform. This book is a direct correction, and it’s one of the more essential press-freedom books of its decade.
Cultural History
Eyeliner: A Cultural History
A global history of eyeliner told through the women, across centuries and continents, who have used it — as protection, as rebellion, as religious practice, as political statement. Hankir traces the cosmetic from ancient Egypt through contemporary Islamic debates over its use, using one small object to talk about beauty, power, and control over women’s bodies worldwide.
A sharp pivot from straight journalism into cultural history, but the underlying interest is the same one that runs through Our Women on the Ground: taking seriously something the world tends to dismiss as trivial because women are the ones who care about it.
Essays · Forthcoming
Let It Be a Tale: Palestinian Journalists on Survival and Resistance
Hankir’s next anthology gathers original essays by Palestinian reporters working under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, with a foreword by poet Mosab Abu Toha, documenting one of the deadliest periods for journalists on record.
A direct continuation of the project she started with Our Women on the Ground: give the byline and the platform to the people actually living the story. Worth watching for.
Where to start with Zahra Fatima Hankir
If you have never read her
→ Start with Our Women on the Ground. It’s the book that established her approach — and it introduces you to nineteen other essential journalists at once.
If you want the more unusual entry point
→ Eyeliner: A Cultural History, a global history told through a single, deceptively small object.
If the theme is what draws you — journalism from inside the story, not observing it
→ My best investigative journalism books list and personal essays reading list both have more in this vein.
