Reflection 7

Andrea Shalal spoke about the changing landscape of Arab-American literature. She also mentioned several prominent writers from the genre and touched on their achievements. I think the lecture gave me a greater understanding and appreciation of the Arab-American writers out there. For example, I had never heard of Gibran’s book, The Prophet, and was surprised to find out that it was nearly as popular as the Bible. Also, I learned that poetry is much more common than novels in Arab culture, which seems strange to me because in the US it is the other way around. It was also interesting to hear that Arabs are considered white by the US census but are treated as people of color. This may be detrimental because it excludes them from being represented among other minorities. Some of the writers mentioned were Khaled Mattawa, a MacArthur Genius Award winner who writes and translates Arabic poetry, Mohja Kahf, who writes about women in Arab culture and the war in Syria, and Diana Abu-Jaber who wrote a novel called Arabian Jazz and had another novel killed off by her publisher due to fear of backlash, because it was critical of Israel. It turns out that 5 publishing companies control 80-90% of the market, making it very difficult for unpopular ideas to get published. My favorite author was Suheir Hammad, a poet of Arab descent who grew up in Brooklyn. Her style is very feisty and shows influences from hip hop. Her most popular poem is “There Have been no Words,” which artfully conveys her anger towards those who lumped all Arab-Americans in with terrorists after the 9/11 attacks.