Randa Jarrar (born 1978) is an American writer and translator. Her first novel, the coming-of-age story ''A Map of Home'' (2008), won her the
Hopwood Award
The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood.
Under the terms of the will of Avery Hopwood, a prominent American dramatist and member of the class of 1905 of the University of Michigan, ...
, and an
Arab American Book Award
The Arab American Book Award, established in 2006, is an annual literary award to celebrate and support the research of, and the written work of, Arab Americans and their culture. The Arab American Book Award encourages the publication and excelle ...
. Since then she has published short stories, essays, the collection, ''Him, Me, Muhammad Ali'' (2016), and the memoir, ''Love Is an Ex-Country'' (2021).
She teaches creative writing in an
MFA program at
California State University at Fresno.
Biography
Randa Jarrar was born in 1978 in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, to an
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
ian mother and a
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
father. She grew up in Kuwait and Egypt. After the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
in 1991, she and her family returned to the United States, living in the New York area. Jarrar studied creative writing at
Sarah Lawrence College, receiving an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
, and an MFA in creative writing from the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
.
She is a creative writing professor at California State University. Of her writing, author and critic Mat Johnson has said “Randa Jarrar’s prose is bold and luscious and makes the darkly comic seem light."
Writings
Jarrar has written nonfiction and fiction, publishing her first short story in the prestigious Ploughshares literary journal in Fall 2004. Her short story, "You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who First Moved to Texas" was the winner of the first
Million Writers Award Million Writers Award was a short story literary award presented annually by storySouth. It honored the best online short stories. The award was structured to be egalitarian allowing for anyone to nominate a story including readers, authors, editor ...
for online fiction. She has published two Lives columns in The New York Times Magazine, exploring her past as a single mother.
Her first novel came out to critical acclaim in 2008. The Christian Science Monito
wrote “Randa Jarrar takes all the sappy, beloved clichés about “where you hang your hat” and blows them to smithereens in her energizing, caustically comic debut novel, A Map of Home.”
Her second book, a collection of stories, won A PEN Oakland Award, A Story Prize Spotlight Award, and an American Book Award.
Of her stories, critic
Lorraine Ali wrote "Jarrar is hardly the romantic. Love between couples here is often no more than sex, casual and flippant in the new world, or the unwanted consequence of an arranged marriage in the old world. When her characters are in relationships, it's often in the context of a parent or family they never really had a strong bond with in the first place. It might be the resentment-filled space between mothers and daughters, or the disappointment of fathers who are just far enough out of touch to remain a mystery. But when Jarrar's sense of humor tangles with her character's feelings of estrangement, the results are often charming and funny — in a bittersweet sort of way."
In 2021, she published the memoir, ''Love Is an Ex-Country.''
Barbara Bush commentary
On April 17, 2018, following the death of former first lady
Barbara Bush
Barbara Pierce Bush (June 8, 1925 – April 17, 2018) was First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, as the wife of President George H. W. Bush, and the founder of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She previously w ...
, Jarrar described the former first lady as "a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal. Fuck outta here with your nice words",
referring to Bush's son, former President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
.
She said she felt compelled to speak “because I want people to remember history. I want people to know that our country’s actions don’t just disappear; they have real, negative consequences,” she said in an email. “If we want a better future, we have to confront our past.” Jarrar elaborated on her criticism of the former First Lady, citing the Bush family legacy in Iraq and Barbara's comments about Anita Hill (whose claims she doubted) and Katrina victims (she once said evacuees were “underprivileged anyway” and better off in the Astrodome). “The Bush family — including Barbara Bush — supported policies that harmed and destroyed the lives of millions,” she said.
Jarrar was sharply criticized for her remarks, and demands were made that she be terminated from her job. In response to this, she tweeted that she will "never be fired" for her words, because she has tenure at
California State University at Fresno.
California State University at Fresno president Joseph Castro responded to widespread public outrage, saying "Professor Jarrar’s expressed personal views and commentary are obviously contrary to the core values of our University, which include respect and empathy for individuals with divergent points of view".
Fresno State confirmed that she was on leave from the university at the time the controversial comments were made.
At a news conference, university
provost Lynnette Zelezny confirmed that Jarrar's tenure would not protect her from termination, but did not specify whether termination was appropriate at the time.
On April 25, 2018, News Metropolis reported that a
Change.org
Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...
petition to remove Jarrar from her position at Fresno State University had received over 90,000 signatures. The ACLU of Northern California, PEN America, The Thomas Jefferson Center for Freedom of Expression, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others sent letters in support of Jarrar.
During the controversy, Jarrar provided a telephone number on her Twitter account as if it was her own contact number, stating "If you really wanna reach me, here's my number ok?"
The phone number that she provided was that of an emergency
suicide/crisis hotline at
Arizona State University. ASU said that they did not believe anyone who needed to get through was unable to.
Comments on diversity and cultural appropriation
Jarrar wrote an opinion piece called "Why I Can't Stand White Belly-Dancers", published in ''Salon'' in 2014. In this piece, Jarrar said she felt that white women who take part in the art of bellydance are engaging in cultural appropriation and "brown face."
Her commentary was widely criticized; UCLA law professor
Eugene Volokh
Eugene Volokh (; born February 29, 1968 as Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh ( uk, Євге́н Володимирович Волох)) is an American legal scholar known for his scholarship in American constitutional law and libertarianism as well as ...
stated, "Maybe telling people that they can’t work in some field because they have the wrong color or ancestry would be ... rats, I don’t know what to call it. If only there were an adjective that could be used to mean 'telling people that they mustn’t do something, because of their race or ethnic origin'". ''
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
'' writer Conor Friedersdorf offered: "
th regional variations, something like
Raqs Sharqi seems to have been known throughout the Mediterranean and certainly flourished in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean before the arrival of the Arabs in the 7th century".
Novelist and comics writer
G. Willow Wilson
Gwendolyn Willow Wilson (born August 31, 1982) is an American comics writer, prose author, and essayist. Her best-known prose works include the novels ''Alif the Unseen'' and '' The Bird King''. She is most well known for relaunching the '' Ms. Ma ...
wrote in defense of Jarrar, "When you shimmy around a stage in a hip band and call yourself Aliya Selim and receive praise and encouragement, while the ''real'' Aliya Selims are shortening their names to Ally and wondering if their accent is too strong to land that job interview, if the boss will look askance at their headscarf, if the kids at school are going to make fun of their children, guess what: you are exercising considerable privilege." In response to these criticisms, Jarrar wrote a follow-up to her piece, titled "I Still Can't Stand White Bellydancers".
On July 27, 2018, Jarrar tweeted, "At some point, all of us in the literary community must DEMAND that white editors resign. It’s time to STEP DOWN and hand over the positions of power. We don’t have to wait for them to fuck up. The fact that they hold these positions is fuck up enough." This was in response to the publication in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'' of a poem that made what some commentators perceived as racist attempts at black vernacular, which sparked a backlash, and which the editors later apologized for publishing.
Personal life
Jarrar has written about her experiences with domestic violence and
reproductive coercion. She is openly queer.
Awards
* 2004
Million Writers Award Million Writers Award was a short story literary award presented annually by storySouth. It honored the best online short stories. The award was structured to be egalitarian allowing for anyone to nominate a story including readers, authors, editor ...
for best short story online
* 2007
Hopwood Award
The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood.
Under the terms of the will of Avery Hopwood, a prominent American dramatist and member of the class of 1905 of the University of Michigan, ...
for Best Novel
* 2009
Arab American Book Award
The Arab American Book Award, established in 2006, is an annual literary award to celebrate and support the research of, and the written work of, Arab Americans and their culture. The Arab American Book Award encourages the publication and excelle ...
[2009 Arab American Book Award Winners]
Retrieved April 23, 2018
* 2016
Story Prize Spotlight Award[The Story Prize, 2016]
THE 2016 SPOTLIGHT AWARD WINNER: Randa Jarrar, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali (Sarabande Books)
Retrieved April 23, 2018
* 2017 American Book Award
The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...
[Jefferson Beavers, August 9, 2017, Fresno State News (press release)]
PROFESSOR AND AUTHOR RANDA JARRAR WINS AMERICAN BOOK AWARD
Retrieved April 23, 2018, "...won the Story Prize Spotlight Award..."
* 2017 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award
*2020 Creative Capital
Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has commi ...
Award
Bibliography
* '' A Map of Home: A Novel'' Hardcover: Other Press 2008. .
* ''A Map of Home: A Novel'' Paperback: Penguin 2009. .
* ''Him, Me, Muhammad Ali'' Paperback: Sarabande Books 2016.
*''Love Is an Ex-Country'' Hardcover: Catapult 2021. ISBN 9781948226585
;Anthologies
* ''Words Without Borders
''Words Without Borders'' (''WWB'') is an international magazine open to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world's best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers. The ...
: The World Through the Eyes of Writers'', Alane Salierno Mason, Dedi Felman, Samantha Schnee (eds), Anchor Books, March 2007,
* '' Beirut39'' Bloomsbury 2010
* ''Watchlist: 32 short stories by persons of interest'' O/R Books 2016
;Translation
* ''The Year Of The Revolutionary New Bread-making Machine'' by Hassan Daoud, 2007. , Published by Telegram, Paperback
*
References
External links
Author's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarrar, Randa
1978 births
Living people
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American short story writers
21st-century American women writers
21st-century American translators
American Book Award winners
American people of Egyptian descent
American women novelists
American women short story writers
American writers of Palestinian descent
Novelists from Illinois
Sarah Lawrence College alumni
University of Michigan alumni
Writers from Chicago
Queer writers
American LGBT writers