The Poetry Project is thrilled to bring together the palestinian diaspora writers Hala Alyan and Naomi Shihab Nye to navigate identity, displacement, crossing, intergenerational family ties through intimate documentary narratives. The readers will be joined by the renowned composer, oud, and violin player Simon Shaheen. We're also excited to celebrate the publication of Hala Alyan's second novel The Arsonists' City!
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Guernica and elsewhere. Her poetry collections have won the Arab American Book Award and the Crab Orchard Series. Her second novel, THE ARSONIST'S CITY, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2021.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestinian-American, is the Young People's Poet Laureate (Poetry Foundation), the editor of the New York Times Sunday magazine poem, and on faculty at Texas State University.
We encourage enthusiastic readers and listeners to engage more deeply with Hala Alyan's work by purchasing her latest novel, The Arsonists' City.