Our last presentation was done by Andrea Shalal. During the presentation we talked about Arab-American literature and the various writers in the genre.
Some of the writers include:
Khalil Gibran: He immigrated from Lebanon (others who immigrated during the same time were called "The Immigrant Poets). One of his most famous works is The Prophet, which was also turned into a movie produced by Salma Hayek.
Suheir Hammad: she was born in a refugee camp in Jordan then moved to New York. Her most famous poems were written after the 9/11 attacks.
Khaled Mattawa: a Libyan-American who writes poems as well as translated over 10 poems from Arabic to English.
These were just a few of the many writers we discussed in class today. In the class I learned that even though these poets and writer have many works published, they go through a lot to get there. There are 5 top publishing companies and come with their own biases making it hard for Arab-Americans to publish their works.
My Favorite poet discussed today is Amal Kassir and Suheir Hammad. We had listened to a bit of their performances and I just felt very motivated to write myself.
This class has better informed me of the difficulties that writers go through, not just because of publishing troubles, but things that happened in their daily lives. People use writing as an outlet, so some of the poems and books written show what Arab-Americans deal with on almost a daily basis.
Image Source: https://radwafouda.blogspot.com/2010/09/suheir-hammad-mike-check.html