Khaled Mattawa

{{Infobox writer

| name = Khaled Mattawa

| image =

| imagesize =

| caption =Mattawa in 2014

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1964}}

| birth_place = Benghazi, Libya

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = Poet, translator, essayist

| period = 1995–present

| genre = Poetry

| subject =

| movement =

| education = Duke University

| notableworks = Ismalia Eclipse,
The Zodiac of Echoes,
Amorisco

}}

Khaled Mattawa ({{langx|ar|خالد مطاوع}}; born 1964) is a Libyan poet, and a renowned Arab-American writer, he is also a leading literary translator, focusing on translating Arabic poetry into English. He works as an Assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, where he currently lives and writes.{{cite web|title=Khaled Mattawa's page on University of Michigan website |publisher=University of Michigan MFA faculty |access-date=2008-06-26 |url=http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/mfaFacDetail.asp?ID=963 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080601151530/http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/mfaFacDetail.asp?ID=963 |archive-date=2008-06-01}}

Background

Khaled Mattawa was born in Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya where he spent his childhood and early teens. In 1979 he emigrated to the United States. He lived in the south for many years, finishing high school in Louisiana at St. Paul's School and completing bachelor's degrees in political science and economics at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He went on to earn an MA in English and an MFA in creative writing in 1994 from Indiana University Bloomington where he taught creative writing. He was a professor of English and Creative Writing at California State University, Northridge. He received his PhD from Duke University in 2009.

His work has appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, New England Review, Callaloo, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry East, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Black Warrior Review and The Pushcart Prize XIX, The Best American Poetry 1997 anthologies.{{cite web| title = Khaled Mattawa on Web Del Sol | publisher = Web Del Sol Association| access-date = 2008-06-26| url = http://www.webdelsol.com/mattawa/}}

Khaled Mattawa began writing poetry in the late 1980s. His first collection of poems was published 1995. He then started working on translating Arabic poetry of renowned Arab poets into English, his first translation Questions and Their Retinue: Selected Poems of Iraqi poet Hatif Janabi was published in 1996. He contributed and edited two Anthologies on Arab American Literature.{{cite web| title = Khaled Mattawa on Banipal Magazine | publisher = Banipal Magazine| access-date = 2008-06-26| url = http://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/contributor.php?conid=87 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080507185347/http://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/contributor.php?conid=87 |archive-date = 2008-05-07}}

Khaled Mattawa is a contributing editor for Banipal magazine, the leading independent magazine of contemporary Arab literature translated into English. He was president of Radius of Arab American Writers organization RAWI.{{cite web|title=Radius of Arab American Writers |publisher=RAWI |access-date=2008-06-26 |url=http://www.shems.info/rawi/index.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080614053306/http://www.shems.info/rawi/index.php |archive-date=2008-06-14}}

In 2014, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.{{Cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/khaled-mattawa|title = About Khaled Mattawa | Academy of American Poets}} In 2019 he was a contributor to A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue between East and West.

Awards and recognition

Khaled Mattawa has received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2014,{{Cite web|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/922/|title=Khaled Mattawa — MacArthur Foundation|website=www.macfound.org|access-date=2016-07-30}} an Academy of American Poets award, the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation in 2003 and 2011, a 1997 Guggenheim Fellowship,{{cite web |url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/9558-khaled-mattawa |title=Khaled Mattawa - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=2011-10-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130104164406/http://www.gf.org/fellows/9558-khaled-mattawa |archive-date=2013-01-04}} the Alfred Hodder fellowship from Princeton University 1995-1996, an NEA translation grant, and two Pushcart prizes.

Mattawa has also won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Prize and the Banipal Prize. These are the two major awards for translation of Arabic literature into English. He won the former for his translation of Hatif Janabi's poetry and the latter for Selected Poems of Adunis. The only other person to have won both the Arkansas and the Banipal awards is Samah Selim.

Bibliography

=Poetry=

Tocqueville New Issues, 2010 {{ISBN|978-1-930974-90-6}}
Amorisco Ausable Press, 2008, {{ISBN|978-1-931337-44-1}}
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8fF0jh4rhEYC&q=Khaled+Mattawa| title=Zodiac of Echoes| publisher= Ausable Press| year= 2003| isbn=978-1-931337-16-8}}
Ismailia Eclipse The Sheep Meadow Press, 1995, {{ISBN|978-1-878818-44-7}}
Contributor to The New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West {{ISBN|9781909942288}}

=Translation from Arabic=

Adonis: Selected Poems (The Margellos World Republic of Letters), Yale 2010, {{ISBN|978-0-300-15306-4}} (shortlisted for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize)
Amjad Nasser, (2009). Shepherd of solitude: selected poems, 1979-2004, Banipal Books, {{ISBN|978-0-9549666-8-3}}
Joumana Haddad, (2008). Invitation to a Secret Feast, Tupelo Press, {{ISBN|978-1-932195-62-0}}
Iman Mirsal, (2008). These are not oranges, my love: selected poems, Sheep Meadow Press, {{ISBN|978-1-931357-54-8}}
Maram Al-Massri, (2004). A Red Cherry on a White-Tiled Floor: Selected Poems by Bloodaxe Books, United Kingdom, 2004, {{ISBN|978-1-85224-640-2}}; Copper Canyon Press, United States, 2007
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iHgm2zaZ5DwC&q=Khaled+Mattawa| title=Miracle Maker, Selected Poems| author= Fadhil Al Azzawi| author-link= Fadhil Al Azzawi| publisher=BOA Editions| year= 2004| isbn=978-1-929918-45-4}}
Saadi Youssef, (2002). Without An Alphabet, Without A Face: Selected Poems Graywolf Press, {{ISBN|978-1-55597-371-1}}
Fadhil Al Azzawi, (1997). In Every Well A Joseph Is Weeping, poems of Quarterly Review of Books
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXgDgCW7wQcC&q=Questions+and+Their+Retinue%3A+Selected+Poems&pg=PR19| title=Questions and Their Retinue: Selected Poems| author=Hatif Janabi| author-link=Hatif Janabi| publisher=University of Arkansas Press| year= 1996| isbn=978-1-55728-432-7}}

=Anthologies of Arab American Literature=

Dinarzad's Children: An Anthology of Arab American Fiction, University of Arkansas Press, 2004 {{ISBN|978-1-55728-912-4}}
Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing, Kitab, 1999, {{ISBN|978-0-9652031-3-5}}

=Essays=

[https://www.press.umich.edu/9299873/how_long_have_you_been_with_us How Long Have You Been With Us?: Essays on Poetry]. (University of Michigan Press, 2016, {{ISBN|978-0-472-07329-0}}).

References

External links

[http://www.webdelsol.com/mattawa/ Selected poems from Web Del Sol]
[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2278/is_4_31/ai_n21167319/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 An interview with Khaled Mattawa on MELUS by Salah D. Hassan]{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}
[http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v6n2/features/mattawa_k/interview.htm "A Conversation with Khaled Mattawa"] with Jeff Lodge and Patty Paine, Blackbird v6n2.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080616004621/http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/ University of Michigan MFA Faculty]
[http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/shortlists/2011-shortlist/khaled-mattawa/ Griffin Poetry Prize biography of Khaled Mattawa, including video clip]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111204022242/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2011/03/conversation-khaled-mattawa.html "Conversation: Libyan Poet Khaled Mattawa"], PBS Newshour, March 1, 2011
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110726101826/http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11498 "Ali Ahmida & Khaled Mattawa"], Charlie Rose, February 22, 2011