Source: Lamees Al-Athari, 785-539-9117, lamees@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Jessica Grant, 785-532-6415, jgrant@k-state.edu
Monday, March 17, 2008
IRAQI POET TO GIVE READING AT K-STATE
MANHATTAN -- A poet whose writings were considered rebellious and subversive enough for the Iraqi regime to threaten her in the 1990s will present a reading of her work at Kansas State University.
Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi-born poet who sought asylum in the United States after being threatened in 1996 by the Iraqi regime, will give a reading at 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 28, in Hale Library's Hemisphere Room. The reading is free and the public is welcome.
The event is sponsored by the department of English, the College of Arts and Sciences' Diversity Lecture Series, the women's studies and creative writing programs and the K-State Student Governing Association's fine arts fee.
"Dunya Mikhail represents a generation of Iraqis who were able to reach their goals despite living a turbulent life under harsh dictatorship and witnessing the destruction of their beloved country by three ravishing wars," said Lamees Al-Athari, a K-State graduate student in English from Iraq who is writing her master's thesis on Mikhail's poetry. Al-Athari also is a Fulbright Fellow.
"She opens a window into the world of the Iraqi people by giving them voice through her poetry to tell their stories of suffering through wars, sanctions and desolation," Al-Athari said.
As a Christian Iraqi-American, Mikhail writes poetry that encompasses both the Middle-Eastern traditions and Western conventions. While war may be a main theme in her work, the most prominent feature lies in the diversity of cultures represented, Al-Athari said.
"This diversity stems from the fact that she grew up as a Christian Arab in a Muslim nation, speaking both Arabic and Chaldean, and therefore reflecting those two cultures in her poems," Al-Athari said. "She added to that diversity when she arrived in the United States and began incorporating her new identity as an American into her work. Blending Iraqi culture, mythology and tradition with Western imagery afforded her poetry depth and complexity."
Born in Baghdad, Mikhail has published four collections of poetry in Arabic and one in English, including (titles are translated from the Arabic) "The Psalms of Absence," "Almost Music" and "The War Works Hard." In 2001 she was awarded the United Nations' Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. "The War Works Hard" won the Translation Award from PEN, the human rights organization, and was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 25 best books of 2005. It also was on the short list for the prestigious international Griffin Poetry Prize.
Mikhail's work has appeared in many anthologies including "World Beat--International Poetry Now," "Iraqi Poetry Today," "New Arab Poetry" and "The Poetry of Arab Women."
Mikhail is currently working on a second edition of her book "Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea," which is a journal of her life as a woman in Iraq and her journey to reach the United States, said Gregory Eiselein, professor and director of graduate studies in English at K-State.
"Dunya Mikhail's poems ask us to look at war from different perspectives, often from the point of view of women whose lives are devastated by loss," said Susan Jackson Rodgers, associate professor and director of creative writing at K-State. "But the voices never play the martyr and do not want the listener's pity; they just want to be heard. The poems are direct, simple, clear, forceful and filled with bleak beauty and sometimes darkly humorous ironies. Through her poems, Dunya Mikhail is telling a story we all need to hear."
Mikhail has a master's degree in Near Eastern studies from Wayne State University in Michigan, and a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Baghdad. She is currently working as an Arabic resource coordinator for the Dearborn (Mich.) Public Schools.