Hala Alyan (born July 27, 1986) is a Palestinian-American writer, poet, and clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, addiction, and cross-cultural behavior.

Her family lived in Kuwait after her birth but sought political asylum in the United States when Iraqi forces invaded the country.

[5] Alyan's poems have been published in various journals and literary magazines including The New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Guernica, Jewish Currents among others.

[6][7][non-primary source needed][8][9] In her first novel, Salt Houses, the Yacoub family is forced to leave their home in Nablus, Palestine in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.

“Claims of memory: Transgenerational traumas,: fluid identities, and resistance in Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 56, no.