Khaled Mattawa

Infobox Writer


imagesize = 150px
name = Khaled Mattawa
caption =
birthdate = birth year and age|1964
birthplace = Benghazi, Benghazi, Libya
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Poet, Translator & Essayist
period = 1995–present
genre = Poetry
subject =
movement =
notableworks = "Ismalia Eclipse", "The Zodiac of Echoes"

Khaled Mattawa (born 1964)is a Libyan poet, and a renowned Arab-American writer, he is also a leading literary translator, focusing on translating Arabic poetry into English. He works as an Assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, where he currently lives and writes.cite web| title = Khaled Mattawa's page on University of Michigan website | publisher = University of Michigan MFA faculty| accessdate = 2008-06-26| url = http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/mfaFacDetail.asp?ID=963]

Background

Khaled Mattawa was born in Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya where he spent his childhood and early teens. In 1979 he emigrated to the United States. He lived in the South for many years, finishing high school in Louisiana and completing bachelors degrees in political science and economics at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He went on to earn an MA in English and an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University where he taught creative writing. A professor of English and Creative Writing at California State University, Northridge, he has published poems in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, New England Review, Callaloo, Poetry East, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Black Warrior Review and The Pushcart Prize anthology.cite web| title = Khaled Mattawa on Web Del Sol | publisher = Web Del Sol Association| accessdate = 2008-06-26| url = http://www.webdelsol.com/mattawa/]

Khaled Mattawa began writing poetry in late 1980s. His first collection of poems was published 1995. He then started working on translating Arabic poetry of renowned Arab poets into English, his first translation "Questions and Their Retinue: Selected Poems" of Iraqi poet Hatif Janabi was published in 1996. He contributed and edited two Anthologies on Arab American Literature.cite web| title = Khaled Mattawa on Banipal Magazine | publisher = Banipal Magazine| accessdate = 2008-06-26| url = http://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/contributor.php?conid=87] Khaled Mattawa is a contributing editor for Banipal magazine the leading independent magazine of contemrory Arab literature translated into English. He is president of Radius of Arab American Writers organization RAWI.cite web| title = Radius of Arab American Writers | publisher = RAWI| accessdate = 2008-06-26| url = http://www.shems.info/rawi/index.php]

Awards and recognition

Khaled Mattawa has won an Academy of American Poets award, the PEN award for literary translation, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Alfred Hodder fellowship from Princeton University 1995-1996, an NEA translation grant, and two Pushcart prizes.

Bibliography

* Books of Poetry:
* "Zodiac of Echoes" Ausable Press, 2003
* "Ismailia Eclipse" The Sheep Meadow Press, 1995

* Poetry Books of Translation from Arabic:
* "A Red Cherry on A White-Tile Floor", poems by Maram Al-Massri, Copper Canyon, 2007
* "Miracle Maker, Selected Poems" of Fadhil Al-Azzawi, BOA Editions, 2004
* "Without An Alphabet, Without A Face: Selected Poems" of Saadi Youssef, Graywolf Press, 2002
* "In Every Well A Joseph Is Weeping", poems of Fadhil al-Azzawi, Quarterly Review of Books, 1997
* "Questions and Their Retinue: Selected Poems" of Hatif Janabi, University of Arkansas Press, 1996

* Anthologies of Arab American Literature:
* "Dinarzad's Children: An Anthology of Arab American Fiction", University of Arkansas Press, 2004
* "Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing", Syracuse University Press, 1999

See also

* English literature
* Libya
* Arabic literature
* List of Arab American writers

References

External links

* [http://www.webdelsol.com/mattawa/ Selected poems from Web Del Sol]
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2278/is_4_31/ai_n21167319/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 An interview with Khaled Mattawa on MELUS by Salah D. Hassan]
* [http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v6n2/features/mattawa_k/interview.htm A Conversation with Khaled Mattawa Jeff Lodge and Patty Paine for Blackbird online literary journal]
* [http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/ University of Michigan MFA Faculty]