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Biographies of Presenters
Laila Al-Atrash
Jordanian
Laila Al-Atrash has published five novels including A
Woman of Five Seasons, and one short story collection. She
writes a column on public issues for the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour and
comments on literary topics for Amman Magazine. She has worked as a
journalist in Palestine, as a radio program producer and host in Jordan, and
as a TV news editor, anchor, and program producer elsewhere in the Middle
East. She is a member of the High Council and Executive Committee of the
Jordanian Ministry of Culture and serves as the President of PEN Jordan.
Taha Muhammad Ali
Palestinian
Taha Muhammad Ali has lived through the many stages of
the Israeli–Arab conflict, and his poetry and fiction emerge
directly from the crucible of that tragedy.
He is the author of four books
of poetry in Arabic and a book of short stories. So What: New & Selected
Poems, 1971–2005, translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel
Levin, was published in September of 2006 by Copper Canyon Press.
Astrid Cabral
Brazilian
Cabral is a poet, environmentalist, critic, novelist, and
former diplomat from Manaus, the capital of the Amazonian
region of Brazil. She has translated numerous works into Portuguese,
including Thoreau’s Walden. The environmental awareness that
characterizes much of her writing has made her one of the leading figures
in the Amazonian cultural identity recovery movement. Her book of poems,
Jaula/Cage, with translations by Alexis Levitin, will be published this year.
Peter Cole
American poet and translator
The recipient of a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, Cole has
published four collections of poetry, the most recent
being Things on Which I’ve Stumbled. Cole’s prize-winning translations
of the Hebrew Golden Age poets have helped recreate for contemporary
American readers the multifaceted world of medieval Spain, in which
Jewish artistic and intellectual communities flourished under Islamic rule.
His anthology, The Dream of the Poem, traces the arc of this period. Among
Cole’s translations from contemporary Hebrew is So What: New & Selected
Poems, by Taha Muhammad Ali.
Anahita Firouz
Iranian
Anahita Firouz is the author of In the Walled Gardens, a
political novel about Iran shortly before the Islamic Revolution.
What mattered most for her in writing this novel was to bring to life
the complexity of an entire society, trying to find its sense of identity and
balance, unaware that it was in fact on the verge of destruction. Firouz
was born and grew up in Tehran. She studied in Europe and the United
States, and returned to Iran to work for the National Iranian Television as a
producer and interviewer.
Derek Green
American
Derek Green has spent more than a decade as a
professional journalist and a contract consultant for several
multinational corporations. His work has taken him to twenty-two countries
on six continents.
New World Order, published by Autumn House Press, is
his first book. In this wide-ranging collection of stories, Green takes readers
on a tour of the world as America’s military-industrial complex reels into a
new century.
Robert Hass
American poet and translator
Robert Hass has edited and translated several collections of
international poets, published essay collections and several
award-winning books of his own poetry, most recently Time and Materials,
which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for poetry as well as the National Book
Award. Hass has translated the works of Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, and
was guest editor of the 2001 edition of Best American Poetry. As US Poet
Laureate (1995-1997), his commitment to environmental issues led him to
found River of Words (ROW), an organization that promotes environmental
and arts education. Awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, among many other
national awards, Robert Hass is a professor of English at UC Berkeley.
Samuel Hazo
American translator
Samuel Hazo is the founder and director of the International
Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh.
He has published many books,
including poetry, novels, plays, memoir and translations. His most recent
book is The Song of the Horse: Selected Poems, 1958-2008, from Autumn
House Press. His translations include Denis de Rougemont’s The Growl of
Deeper Waters, Nadia Tueni’s Lebanon: Twenty Poems for One Love, and
Adonis’ The Pages of Day and Night.
Alexis Levitin
American translator
Levitin’s translations from the Portugese have appeared
in well over two hundred literary magazines, including
Partisan Review, Grand Street, Kenyon Review, and Osiris.
He has
published twenty-four books of translations, including Guernica and Other
Poems by Carlos de Oliveira, Soulstorm by Clarice Lispector, and Forbidden
Words by Eugenio de Andrade. He has won two NEA Fellowships for
translation.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Palestinian-American
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than
20 volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of
Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and You & Yours. She is also the author
of Habibi and Going Going (novels for young readers); and Baby Radar and
Sitti’s Secrets (picture books). Other works include seven prize-winning
poetry anthologies for young readers, including This Same Sky. Her new
book of essays is titled I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay? Tales of
Driving and Being Driven. Honeybee, a book of poetry for young adults was
published in 2008. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Witter Bynner
Fellow.
Claudia Rankine
Jamaican
Rankine is the author of four collections of poetry including
the award-winning Nothing in Nature Is Private. In The
End of the Alphabet and Plot, she welds the cerebral and the spiritual,
the sensual and the grotesque. Her latest book, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely,
a multi-genre project that blends poetry, essays, and image, is an
experimental and personal exploration of the condition of fragmented
selfhood in contemporary America. Rankine co-edited the anthology
American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language.
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