Mohja Kahf

Born in Damascus, Syria in 1967, Mohja Kahf came to the United States with her parents in 1971. Her novel, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (Perseus, 2006), is about a Syrian Muslim girl who grows up at the intersection of Islamic dress and bad polyester in 1970s Indiana. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review and Tefirit: Journal of Spirituality and Literature, as well as in her poetry book, E-mails from Scheherazad (University Press of Florida, 2003). A graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Dr. Kahf teaches Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic literature as associate professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Kahf’s article "The Silences of Contemporary Syrian Literature" (World Literature Today, Spring 2001) discusses the effects of Baathist censorship on Syrian writing. On February 3, inspired by a Syrian woman activist who was organizing civil disobediences inside Syria, Kahf posted a short video on YouTube.com calling for freedom in Syria http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMFHVTjFML0. She tweets for the Syrian revolution @profkahf.