Nathalie Handal is an American
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
,
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
and
educator
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
,
described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” A New Yorker of Mediterranean roots, she has published seven prize-winning collections, including ''Life in a Country Album.'' She is praised for her “diverse, and innovative body of work.”
[Poetry Foundation - Nathalie Handal](_blank)
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Biography
Nathalie Handal is a French-American poet and writer born in the Caribbean to a Palestinian family from Bethlehem. She has lived in France, Italy, the United States, Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
, the Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
and the Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
. After earning a MFA in Creative Writing
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...
from Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...
, Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
and a MPhil in English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
at the University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
, Handal began writing and translating global literature in the 1990s. She currently resides in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
and Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and teaches at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
.
Literary career
Handal has authored books of poetry, plays, essays, and has edited two anthologies and has been involved as a writer, director, or producer in several theatrical or film productions. Her work has been translated into over fifteen languages. She is a Lannan Foundation Fellow, Pen International Croatia Fellow, Centro Andaluz de las Letras Fellow, Fondazione di Venezia Fellow, recipient of the Alejo Zuloaga Order in Literature 2011, the AE Ventures Fellowship, an Honored Finalist for the 2009 Gift of Freedom Award, and was shortlisted for New London Writers Awards and The Arts Council of England Writers Awards. Her work has appeared in anthologies and magazines such as ''Vanity Fair,'' ''The New York Times'', ''The Guardian'', ''The Irish Times'', ''World Literature Today'', ''The Virginia Quarterly Review'', ''Poetry New Zealand'', ''Guernica Magazine'', and ''The Nation''.
Her book ''The Lives of Rain'' was shortlisted for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
The Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize is a major American literary award for a first full-length book of poetry in the English language.
This prize of the University of Pittsburgh Press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States was initiated by ...
and received the Menada
''Menada'' is a genus of moths of the family Noctuidae
The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family of moths. They are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of t ...
Literary Award. ''Love and Strange Horses'' won the 2011 Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY Award), and was an Honorable Mention at the San Francisco Book Festival and the New England Book Festival. The flash collection ''The Republics'' was called “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers” and is winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award. And ''Life in a Country Album'' is winner of the Palestine Book Award and a Foreword Indies Book Award finalist.
Handal has edited the anthology ''The Poetry of Arab Women'', which introduced Arab women poets to a wider audience in the West. It was an Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
bestseller, named one of the top 10 Feminist Books by ''The Guardian'', and it won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award
The PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award is for U.S. multicultural writers, to "promote works of excellence by writers of all cultural and racial backgrounds and to educate both the public and the media as to the nature of multicultural work. ...
. She co-edited along with Tina Chang
Tina Chang is an American poet, professor, editor, organizer, and public speaker. In 2010, she was named Poet Laureate of Brooklyn.
Early life
Chang was born in 1969 in Oklahoma to Taiwanese immigrants, who had met in Montreal, where her mother ...
and Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North Ind ...
the anthology ''Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond''. She has lectured or been a Visiting Writer at La Sorbonne
The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...
in Paris, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Ca' Foscari University of Venice ( it, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, simply Università Ca' Foscari) is a public university in Venice, Italy. Since its foundation in 1868, it has been housed in the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca' Foscari, from w ...
, John Cabot
John Cabot ( it, Giovanni Caboto ; 1450 – 1500) was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is the earliest-known European exploration of coastal North ...
in Rome, The American University
The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valle ...
in Beirut, Picador Guest Professor at Leipzig University
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...
, Germany, and professor at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and part of the Low-Residency MFA faculty at Sierra Nevada University
Sierra Nevada University (SNU) was a private university in Incline Village, Nevada in the Sierras. In 2022 it became University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. Founded in 1969, Sierra Nevada College was accredited by the Northwest Commission o ...
. Handal is currently a professor at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
and a Visiting Writer at The American University
The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valle ...
in Rome.
She writes the literary travel column, "The City and the Writer," for Words Without Borders magazines, and "Eat: Everywhere a Tale," for Popula.
Publications
;Poetry
* ''The Neverfield Poem'' (1999)
* ''The Lives of Rain'' (2005)
* ''Love and Strange Horses'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010)
* ''Poet in Andalucía'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012)
* ''The Invisible Star/La estrella invisible'' (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2014)
* ''The Republics'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015)
* ''Life in a Country Album'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019)
* ''Volo'' (Diode Editions, chapbook 2022)
;Poetry / Foreign Publications
* ''Las horas suspendidas: poemas escogidos'' (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2012)
* ''Poeta en Andalucía'' (Visor, España, 2013)
* ''La estrella invisible'' (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2014)
* ''Riflessi, Artist Book, Illustrazioni di Lucio Schiavo'' (Damocle Edizioni,Venezia, 2016)
* ''Pjesnik u Andaluziji'' (Druga prica, Zagreb, 2017)
* ''التّلحمية Al-Talhamiyah'' (Jordan, 2017)
* ''Canto Mediterraneo'' (Ronzani Editore, Italia, 2018)
* ''Le vite della pioggia'' (Iacobelli Editore, Roma, Italia, 2018)
* ''Poet in Andalucia - Arabic'' (Takween, Damascus, 2019)
* ''Life in A Country Album - UK'' (flipped eye, United Kingdom 2020)
* ''Selected Poems: 2005-2019'' (Fawasel Publishing House, Syria, 2022)
;Anthologies
* ''The Poetry of Arab Women'' (2001, ed. by Handal)
* ''Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond'' (W.W. Norton, 2008, ed. by Handal, Tina Chang and Ravi Shankar)
;Plays
* ''Between Our Lips''
* ''La Cosa Dei Sogni''
* ''The Stonecutters''
* ''The Details of Silence''[
* ''The Oklahoma Quartet''
* ''Hakawatiyeh''
* ''Men in Verse'']
;Prose (creative nonfiction, fiction)
*“The Night and Nightingale" Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, March 2017
*“My East in Venice" Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, April 2017
*“After Kaddish" Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, September 2018
;CDs
* ''Traveling Rooms''
* ''Spell''
;Interviews and Reviews
* "Mahmoud Darwish: Palestine's Poet of Exile", ''The Progressive
''The Progressive'' is a left-leaning American magazine and website covering politics and culture. Founded in 1909 by U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. and co-edited with his wife Belle Case La Follette, it was originally called ''La Follett ...
'', May 2002
*"Shades of a Bridge's Breath", ''This bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation'', eds. Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Analouise Keating (Routledge, 2002).
*"Sisterhood of Hope", interview with Zainab Salbi, ''Saudi Aramco World'', September/October 2010
*"We Are All Going to Die", interview with Edwidge Dandicat, Guernica Magazine, January 2011
*"The Other Face of Silence", interview with Elia Suleiman, Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, May 2011
*"Not Quite Invisible", Nathalie Handal interviews Mark Strand, Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, April 2012
*"Against the Line", interview with Jonathan Galassi, Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, June 2012
*“Elisa Biagini: A World Reinvented Through Poetry,” Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, February 7, 2014
*“Kareem James Abu-Zeid: A Search for Justice and Expansive Identities," Guernica Magazine
''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on internat ...
, August 2014
*“Isabella Hammad's The Parisian", Electric Literature
''Electric Literature'' is an independent publisher founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum in 2009 as a quarterly journal. It launched the first fiction magazine on the iPhone and iPad. The print version of the journal is produced via print ...
, May 7, 2019
*“Introduction to Edwidge Danticat", 92Y
92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a cultural and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Founded in 1874 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association, the ...
, September 2019
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Handal, Nathalie
1969 births
Palestinian poets
Palestinian women writers
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
20th-century French poets
20th-century French women writers
Living people
21st-century American poets
21st-century American women writers
21st-century French poets
Alumni of the University of London
American women poets
Bennington College alumni
Columbia University staff
French women poets
Sierra Nevada College
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners
American writers in French
21st-century French women