Abinader, Elmaz

PERSONAL: Born in Masontown, PA. Education: University of Pittsburgh, B.A. (cum laude), 1974; Columbia University, M.F.A., 1978; University of Nebraska, Ph.D., 1985.

ADDRESSES: Home—Oakland, CA. Office—English Faculty, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER: Writer, poet, performance artist, speaker, broadcaster. University of Nebraska, writing instructor, 1981–85; City University of New York, John Jay College, New York, NY, associate professor of writing, 1987–91; Mills College, Oakland, CA, professor of creative writing, 1993–, faculty director of The Place for Writers, 1994–. Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt, visiting professor, 1998–99. Associated Writers Programs, board member, 1995–; Fulbright Senior Scholars, Egypt and Israel, member selection committee, 2002; Civitella Ranieri Residencies, member selection committee, 2002; Arab American Museum Project, advisory board, 2002; Creative Non-Fiction and Collaboration, Voices of Our Nations Arts Voices Writing Workshops, faculty member. Has given poetry readings, performed in her own plays, and given scholarly presentations around the world and on television and radio.

MEMBER: Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (cofounder), Poets and Writers, Modern Language Association, Associated Writers Programs.

AWARDS, HONORS: First Prize, Academy of American Poets, University of Nebraska, 1984; First Prize, Johanna Bourgoyne Poetry Contest, Amelia Magazine, 1986; Schweitzer Post Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, State University of New York at Albany, 1985–87; Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York, Creative Incentive Award, 1989–90, Research Fellowship, 1990, 1991; California State University Faculty Arts Program, 1992; Affirmative Action Faculty Development Award, 1992, 1993; Best Ail-Around Award, Writers' Harvest, Share Our Strength, 1995; Quigley Summer Fellowship, 1994, 1995, 1996; Faculty Development Grant, Mills College, 1994–2001; Quigley Fellowship, 1997–98, 2000–03; Fulbright Senior Scholarship, 1998–99; Drammy, Oregon's Drama Award, 1999, for Country of Origin; PEN-Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literature, 2000, for In the Country of My Dreams; Goldie Award, San Francisco Bay Guardian Recognition in Arts, 2002; residency, Chateau LaVigny, 2003; Pushcart Prize nomination, 2003, for "The Silence"; endowed chair, Mills College, 2003.

WRITINGS:

Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey (memoir), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1991, 2nd edition published as Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey from Lebanon, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1997.

In the Country of My Dreams: Poetry by Elmaz Abinader, Sufi Warrior Publishing (Oakland, CA), 1999.

Contributor of poetry to numerous anthologies, including All My Grandmothers Could Sing, edited by Judith Sornberger, Free Rein Press, 1984; Post Gibran Anthology of New Arab American Literature, edited by Khaled Mattawa and Munir Akash, Syracuse University Press, 1999; 100 Poets against the War, edited by Todd Swift, 2002; and New Letters: New American Essays, edited by Robert Stewart, BkMK Press, 2006. Also contributor to numerous professional journals and periodicals, including New Letters, Texas Observer, Chariton Review, Voice, MELUS, New York Newsday, Better Homes and Gardens, Al Jadid, No Comment, Mizna, Metro, and the New York Times.

PERFORMANCE PLAYS

Country of Origin (three-act play), produced in Berkeley, CA, 1998.

Also the author of plays, Ramadan Moon, Porter-Troupe Gallery, 2000, and When Silence Is Frightening, Modern Language Association, 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Women from the Occupied Territories, a novel of four lives; Arabic Music, poetry collection.

SIDELIGHTS: Elmaz Abinader is a professor of creative writing who is widely known as a poet, author, playwright, and performance artist. According to Mofld Deak, writing on the U.S. Department of State Web site, Abinader is "one of the more luminous and multifaceted Arab-American writers of the day, an award-winning artist of Lebanese origin." With her Lebanese roots, Abinader has become an acute observer of the Arab-American experience, both in her poetry and prose. Her 1991 family memoir, Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey, traces four generations of the Abinader clan, from their origins in Lebanon to their immigration to the United States, settling in Pennsylvania, where Abinader herself was raised. Reviewing that work in MELUS, Salwa Essayah Cherif noted that Abinader "highlights differences and similarities in the sources of ambivalence of the early Arab-American women in comparison with their contemporary descendants." Abinader begins with her grandmother's emigration tale, which occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century, a time when Lebanon was still under Ottoman rule. She also recounts her mother's story; she was sent back to Lebanon from the United States at age twenty-one to marry in the traditional Lebanese way. Cherif went on to observe: "Through her female relatives' story and the account of their journey, Abinader not only breaks the Orientalist stereotype of women but also vindicates her overpowered relatives by reporting their oppression." Nabeel Abraham, writing in the Journal of American Ethnic History, felt that Children of the Roojme "tells a tale of family drama, betrayal, anguish, illness, and death worthy of a good novel." Similarly, Genevieve Stuttaford, reviewing the same work for Publishers Weekly, called the work a "haunting, piercingly lyrical account."

In addition to her prose work, Abinader has also become well known for her poetry, particularly In the Country of My Dreams: Poetry by Elmaz Abinader, and her play, Country of Origin, a three-act, one-woman show that depicts the lives of three different Arab-American women and their individual as well as communal struggles. Abinader plays a grandmother, a mother, and also her own persona as a young girl in this award-winning theater piece.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey from Lebanon, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1997.

PERIODICALS

Journal of American Ethnic History, winter, 2000, Nabeel Abraham, "Bint Arab: Arab and Arab-American Women in the United States," review of Children of the Roojme, p. 133.

MELUS, winter, 2003, Salwa Essayah Cherif, "Arab-American Literature: Gendered Memory in Abinader and Abu-Jaber," p. 207.

Publishers Weekly, March 1, 1991, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Children of the Roojme, p. 64.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 2003, Jonathan Curiel, "New Attention for an Old Literary Tradition."

ONLINE

Elmaz Abinader Home Page, http://www.elmaz.net (April 3, 2006).

Mills College Web site, http://www.mills.edu/ (April 28, 2006), "Elmaz Abinader."

U.S. Department of State Web site, http://usinfo.state.gov/ (April 28, 2006), Mofid Deak, "Profile: Elmaz Abinader—In the Mix."

Voice of America Online, http://www.voanews.com/ (January 16, 2005), Doreen Baingana, "Writers and the Immigrant Experience: Middle East, Europe and Africa."

Writers Net, http://www.writers.net/ (April 28, 2006), "Elmaz Abinader: Author, Poet, Performance Artist."