MICHIGAN

Reading, Musical Performance

2013 Kresge Artist Fellow and Iraqi-American poet Dunya Mikhail has six books in Arabic, three in English, and one in Italian. She left her country and arrived in Detroit in 1996 in order to write freely.

Her multi-media presentation starts with a reception and combines a reading, songs, images, short film and oud playing. A question and answer session and book signing will follow. Collaborators include Alise Alousi, Hasan Hamid, Susie Ibarra, Nashwan Pola, and Jeannie Vanasco.

SPONSORED BY ARAB AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM and MESOPOTAMIAN SOCIETY

Dunya Mikhail was born in Iraq in 1965 and came to the United States in 1996. She has six books in Arabic, three in English, and one in Italian. They include The Iraqi Nights, Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea, and The War Works Hard. She also edited a pamphlet of Iraqi poetry titled 15 Iraqi Poets. Her Arabic books are published in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia. Her books in English are published in New York by New Directions. They are translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and Elizabeth Winslow, and into Italian by Elena Chiti. Her honors include the Kresge Fellowship, Arab American Book Award, and the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. The War Works Hard was shortlisted for Griffin, and named on of “Twenty-Five Books to Remember from 2005” by the New York Public Library. She is the co-founder of the Mesopotamian Forum for Art and Culture in Michigan. She currently works as an Arabic special lecturer at Oakland University in Michigan.

To see more work by Dunya Mikhail, visitwww.dunyamikhail.com.

Top Right Photo Credit: Cary Loren