U.S. Embassy Sponsors Participation of Outstanding Poet, Author and Performance Artist of Arab-American in V Book Fair 2002

22 April 2002

U.S. Embassy Sponsors Participation of Outstanding Poet, Author and Performance Artist of Arab-American in V Book Fair 2002

The United States Embassy proudly reports that during this week it will sponsor the participation in the V Book Fair 2002 of Elmaz Abinader, a well-known Arab-American author, poet, and performance artist. Besides her participation in the Book Fair, one of the most important cultural events in the Caribbean, Dr. Abinader will also discuss Arab-American literature and women’s issues in the literature of her country at the Dominican-American Cultural Centers, both in Santo Domingo and in Santiago de los Caballeros, and as well as other institutions in both cities.

In Santiago on Tuesday, April 23, at 6:00 P.M., Dr. Abinader will be in the Librería Thesaurus, where she will talk about “Arab-American Literature.” On Wednesday, April 24, also at 6:00 P.M., she will meet with literary groups, the Dominican-Arab community, intellectuals from Santiago and students, in the Dominican-American Cultural Center. She will talk on “Multi-ethnic writers in the United States: building an identity.”

In Santo Domingo, Dr. Abinader will have an active agenda which will begin on Thursday, April 25, at 8:00 P.M., with an encounter in the Restaurant Salón de Té, located at Max Henríquez Ureña No. 20, in Ensanche Naco, where she will speak on “Multi-ethnic Writers.” On Friday, April 26, at 6:00 P.M., she will be present in the Auditorium of the Dominican-American Cultural Institute on “The tradition of Arab-American Literature.”

On Saturday, April 27, at 7:00 P.M., she will discuss on “Multi-ethnic Writers” in the Juan Francisco García Hall, in the framework of the V Book Fair.

For more than a decade Elmaz Abinader has been an important voice in the U. S. literary world. Her works, from her memoirs to her poetry, as well as her works for the theater, reflect the complexities of the history of the United States, the relationship of the country with other cultures and with itself.

In her works, Abinader attempts to include the history and lives of Arab-American States citizens in the literature of her country, the United States. Equally, she uses all the means, which she knows, from prose to acting, to achieve her purpose. For her, contributing to the success of writers from diverse cultures who make up the United States literary world is one of her most important goals.

Her much awaited collection of poems, In the Country of My Dreams, received the Josephine Miles Prize for Literature, from the Organization of Poets, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN) of the city of Oakland, California. It is available through Amazon.com (Sufi Warrior Publishing) on the Internet.

Her book Children of the Roojme: A Family´s Journey from Lebanon, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in the autumn of 1997. Her presentation on stage, where she narrates the stories of Country of Origin, has been touring the United States and the Middle East during the last year. This work recently won two important drama prizes. At present she is working on a novel, Women from the Occupied Territories, and on a book of essays about travel, Ramadan Moon. Also, her new work for the theater, Under the Ramadan Moon, is also on tour.

Dr. Abinader teaches in Mills University and resides in Oakland, California. She received a Master´s in the Fine Arts, poetry mention, from Columbia University, where she studied with the outstanding poet Philip Levine. After receiving a doctorate in Creative Prose, Abinader obtained a scholarship to do a post-Doctorate in Studies in the Humanities.

She worked with Toni Morrison, the famed American writer and winner of the Nobel Prize. It was during this period that Dr. Abinader published her first important work, Children of the Roojme. Early in her career she received an award from the United States Poet’s Academy and more recently won a Senior Fulbright Scholarship in Egypt.