Personal Info
- Country of residence: Kuwait
Information
Dima Al-Shihabi (born 1970) is a
Kuwaiti writer and poet. She has published extensively in magazines and wrote
her first book of poetry in 2011. This was followed by her co-edited anthology
in 2012 in response to the bombing of the historic literary circle in Baghdad,
and in 2014 she collaborated with another poet on a collection of poems along
the lines of Ringa.
her biography
Al Shehabi was born in Kuwait in
1970. She is of Palestinian origin. Her mother was from Gaza and her father was
from Jerusalem. She attended the American School in Kuwait with other
Palestinian exiles. In her childhood, Kuwait was a haven of freedom, education,
and work, and a place where she learned to be proud of her Palestinian culture.
In 1988, she came to the United States to attend Tufts University and earned a
BA in History and International Relations. She received her master's degree in
1993 in journalism from Boston University.
She is vice president of the Arab
American Writers Circle (Rawi), and has curated national events annually since
2009 to bring artists together.
Al-Shihabi has published poems in
many magazines, including Contemporary Arab-American Poetry, Cancer Grove,
Damak Review, The Drunken Boat, Kenyan Review, Literary Imagination, Poetry in
London, Arab Women's Poetry and others, and was nominated for the Pushcart
Prize four times. Her works have been translated into Arabic, Persian and
French. Her first book, Thirteen Departures from the Moon, was published in
2011, and through poetry it discusses what it feels like to be caught between
two worlds. A special section of the American Book Review in its
November-December 2012 issue reviewed Arab-American literature. Al-Shihabi was
one of the authors whose work has been reviewed in depth and is mentioned elsewhere
in the issue as being skilled in her use of spinning.
In response to the 2007 bombing on
Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad, the historic literary district, Al-Shihabi and
Beau Beausoleil edited an anthology in 2012 called Al-Mutanabbi Street Begins
Here from people's responses to the bombing. Contributing contributors include
Yassin Al-Salman and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadeed; Regin
Sahakian, a US-based Iraqi TV producer and Nazik Al-Malaikah as part of the 100
participants. The book won the 2013 Recognition Award from the Northern
California Book Awards presented May 19, 2013 at the San Francisco Public
Library. Rebecca Foust, Dartmouth-in-Residence at Frost Place, hailed the
alternating editing of prose and verse as creating a cohesive rhythm and a
powerful reminder that what happened on Al-Mutanabbi Street could happen
anywhere.
Her most recent publication is a
collaboration with American Jewish poet, Marilyn Hacker, written in the style
of Japanese renga, a form of alternating call and answer. The book,
Diaspo/Ringa: A Ringa Alternating Collaboration Explores the Emotional Journey
of Living in Exile. The collaboration began in 2009 as an exchange of poems
expressing thoughts about the hostilities in Gaza in the period 2008-2009. It
is a dialogue about conflict, which explores the inability to be indifferent,
as war lingers in the mind as a backdrop to mundane daily tasks.
Selected works
Shehabi, Dima. “Requiem for
Achievement,” Mississippi Review, Volum 32 No.3 (2004), pp. 263-264.
Shehabi, Dima. "At the Dome of
the Rock", The Mississippi Review, Vol. 32 No. 3 (2004), p.262
Shehabi, Dima. "The
Narrative," The Kenyon Review, Volume 30 No. 1 (2008), pp. 115-117
Shehabi, Dima. "Hello's Stories," The Massachusetts Review,
Volume 50 No. 1-2 (April 2009), pp. 144-147
Shehabi, Dima. "Ghazal",
Callaloo, Vol. 32 No. 4 (December 2009), p.1161
Shehabi, Dima. Thirteen Departures from the Moon: Poems, Press 53,
Winston Salem, NC (2011) (ISBN 978-1-935708-23-0)
Bousoul, Bo and Dima Chihabi, eds.
Al-Mutanabbi Street Begins Here: Poets and Writers Responding to the March 5,
2007 Bombing of Baghdad "Street of Books Books", PM Press, Oakland,
CA (2012) (ISBN 978-1-60486-590-5)
Hacker, Marilyn and Dima K. Al-Shehabi. Diaspo/Ringa: Collaboration on
Alternating Ringa, Holland Park Press, London (2014) (ISBN 978-1-90732-042-2)
source
Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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