Picador signs Mahmoud Khalil’s ‘searing, era-defining’ memoir
Picador has acquired No Land to Stand On: Protest, Palestine and Being Unfree in America by Mahmoud Khalil, who served as a negotiator between student protestors and the Columbia University administration during protests over the war in Gaza.
Alpana Sajip, senior commissioning editor at Picador, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to the “searing, era-defining” memoir from Devon Mazzone at FSG/Holt. Picador will publish on 29th September 2026 alongside Metropolitan Books in the US.
Khalil, a Palestinian born in a refugee camp in Syria who fled Assad’s regime at the age of 18, was arrested without a warrant by plainclothes ICE officers on 8th March 2025, and spent more than 100 days at the LaSalle Detention Centre in Jena, Louisiana, missing the birth of his first child.
He said: “I began this book while in detention and I finished it fighting a deportation order that may take me from my family. That is what it has cost me to tell this story. I wrote it anyway because I believe testimony is one of the few things that can make injustice visible before it becomes inevitable. My hope is that anyone who reads this understands that Palestine is not the exception, it is the warning. The rights we are losing were never only ours to lose.”
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Sajip said: “Mahmoud Khalil has been subjected to unimaginable treatment by the Trump administration simply for speaking openly about the Israeli government’s war on Gaza, and about the failure of his university and the US government to divest from operations in Israel. His integrity and resolute refusal to be silenced have come at immense personal cost; since his release last year, he has been unable to live freely under a government that has repeatedly sought to strip him of his freedom of speech and his legal right to live in the US.
“If such a shocking demolition of civil liberties can be levelled against him, it can happen to anyone. No Land to Stand On is a searing, heartbreaking and era-defining account of the cost of dissent and a rallying cry for the liberation of a people. Above all, it is an essential testament of courage against authoritarianism. It is an honour and a privilege to publish Mahmoud, who remains a beacon of hope and moral clarity for so many.”
Mary Mount, publisher of Picador, described the memoir as “a work for our times”. “It brings home to us the profound personal cost when the right to free speech is withdrawn,” she said.“The outcome of Khalil’s deportation case will either constitute a victory for rights and law or a travesty of justice that will result in deportation. Either way, his story is a vital symbol and document of our time.”
Khalil studied computer science at the Lebanese American University while working with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, then served as programmes manager at the British Embassy in Beirut. He moved to the US in 2022 to attend Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he became a prominent figure during the student protests against the war on Gaza. Mahmoud lives in New York, where he continues to fight against the threat of deportation. No Land to Stand On is his first book.
