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A reading of poems and a review of artwork by Palestinian writer, poet, and artist Najwa Kawar Farah, followed by audience discussion
Najwa Kawar Farah is a Palestinian writer who has contributed to Palestinian and Arabicliterature for several decades. The bulk of her publications are short stories, novels and poems. Najwa was born in Nazareth and lived in Haifa until 1965, and then in two West Bank cities, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Najwa also lived in Lebanon, the UK and Canada. She passed away in Canada in 2015.
Najwa’s life experiences in Palestine and the Middle East, provided her with the political, historical, and socio-cultural milieu from which she drew and developed her characters.
Most of her protagonists are Palestinians, mainly ’ordinary’ people especially refugees uprooted from their homes and homeland, who seek answers to their individual and collective historical predicament. Many of these protagonists are resilient women, who in addition to their political oppression encounter social discrimination. Her stories and novels come in eleven collections in Arabic. A number of these have been translated into English.
About the Readers/Moderators
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Currently she works as publications editor at the think tank, Arab Center Washington DC. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, will be published by The Poetry Box in 2021. Zeina’s poems appear/will appear in Pleiades, Passager, Sukoon Magazine, Mizna, Cordite Poetry Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Barzakh: A Literary Magazine, Infinite Rust, Heartwood Literary Magazine, Lunch Ticket, The Fourth River, Split This Rock, Voice Male, and the edited volumes Tales from Six Feet Apart (2021),Bettering American Poetry (2019), Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees (2019), The Poeming Pigeon (2017), Write Like You’re Alive 2017, Gaza Unsilenced (2015), and Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves (2008). She volunteers for organizations that promote Palestinian rights and the civil rights of vulnerable communities in Alexandria, Virginia, where she lives, and is a mentor for We Are Not Numbers, a writing program for youth in Gaza. Zeina holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University, an M.A. in sociology from George Mason University, and a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College.
Sahar Mustafah
Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her first novel The Beauty of Your Face (W.W. Norton, 2020) was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review, a Los Angeles Times United We Read selection, one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women, and a Great Group Reads for National Reading Group Month. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for Chicago Writers Association Best Book of the Year award and the Chicago Review of Books award. Her short story collection Code of the West was the winner of the 2016 Willow Books Fiction Award. Her stories have earned a Distinguished Story citation from Best American Short Stories 2016, First Place in Fiction from the Guild Literary Complex of Chicago, and three Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Mustafah earned her MFA from Columbia College Chicago where she was the recipient of the David Friedman Award for Best Fiction. She writes and teaches outside of Chicago.