Western Michigan Professor Hedy Habra's Book Honored by Arab American Book Awards

posted on: Aug 1, 2013

Western Michigan University professor and Portage author Hedy Habra’s 2012 book, “Flying Carpets,” was honored by the Arab American Book Awards.

Habra’s book won an honorable mention by this year’s awards. She will be part of a ceremony in Detroit on Nov. 2.

Habra, who teaches Spanish at WMU, released the collection of short stories last spring.

Habra, who is fluent in Arabic, French, English and Spanish, was born in Egypt and also spent summers in Lebanon, her parents home.

Habra and her husband were pharmacists for the Upjohn Co., stationed in Beirut. They lived in Lebanon until 1976 when the civil war broke out. They then moved to Greece, then Belgium and finally to Kalamazoo in 1981 when the Upjohn Co. moved them here. In an interview last year, Habra said much of book was inspired by her childhood.

“There were lots of scenes, voices, situations that were still alive in my mind, especially childhood memories. And it was a way of recapturing a way of life. On the other hand, it’s all filtered through memory and imagination, so stories are drawn from real characters or real situations, of course, places and a way of life, but then they are transformed,” she said.
You can read more about Habra on her website, www.hedyhabra.com.

John Liberty
MLive