Monday, December 9, 2024
6 pm Doors // 7 pm Event
$15 (+taxes/fees) Advance General Admission // $20 (+ taxes/fees) At The Door
Ticket purchases are final and non-refundable
Join the Palestine Festival of Literature and Mizna for a powerful evening of performance and thought-provoking discussion in PalFest’s first-ever event in Minneapolis. These renowned poets and thinkers will explore the influence of the written word and discuss the role of literary workers in the US as Trump returns to the White House.
We will be joined by Mosab Abu Toha, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Sarah Aziza, Danez Smith, Nick Estes, Sagirah Shahid, and Dina Omar. Authors’ books will be available for sale by Birchbark Books.
MOSAB ABU TOHA is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award, Water & Salt (Red Hen), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for 2018 Arab American Award. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Arab in Newsland, winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and Letters from the Interior (Diode, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.
Sarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer with roots in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. She asks you to do your part in the struggle to liberate Palestine and all people. Her award-winning journalism, poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Harper’s, Mizna, The Washington Post, The Intercept, and The Nation, among others. She has received residencies and fellowships from Fulbright, the Tin House Writer’s Workshop, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Cafe Royal Society, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and Millay Arts. Her first book, The Hollow Half, is a work of experimental memoir exploring the intertwined legacies of diaspora, colonialism, and the American dream. It will be published in April 2025.
Danez Smith is the author of three collections including Homie and Don’t Call Us Dead. They have won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and have been a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, the National Book Critic Circle Award, and the National Book Award. Danez's poetry and prose has been featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, Best American Poetry, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Danez is a member of the Dark Noise Collective. Former co-host of the Webby nominated podcast VS (Versus), they are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Princeton, United States Artists, the McKnight Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Danez has been featured as part of Forbes’ annual 30 Under 30 list and is the winner of a Pushcart Prize. They live in Minneapolis near their people.
Nick Estes, an enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, is an assistant professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of the award-winning book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (2019), which explores the Dakota Access Pipeline protests through the lens of Indigenous history and resistance. Estes also co-edited Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement (2019) with Jaskiran Dhillon, a collection of essays from more than thirty contributors that reflect on the movement’s significance and its place within the broader context of Indigenous struggles for sovereignty. His work highlights the long-standing tradition of Indigenous activism and its contemporary relevance in environmental and political movements.
Sagirah Shahid is a Pushcart Prize–nominated Black Muslim poet from Minneapolis, Minn. Her poetry and prose are published in Mizna, Winter Tangerine, Prose Online, Juked, About Place Journal, and elsewhere. In 2020, her poetry was selected by Muslim Advocates and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design for inclusion in the American Muslim Futures virtual exhibition. Sagirah is a poetry editor for Overtly Lit.
Dina Omar is a lecturer at UC Berkeley who teaches Palestinian poetry. She is a doctoral candidate at Yale University in anthropology and gender and women’s studies. While studying for her Master’s degree at Columbia University, Dina was part of the adhoc organizing committee that founded National Students for Justice in Palestine. Between 2012 and 2014, she served on the National Executive Board of the Palestine Youth Movement and was part of establishing the Ghassan Kanafani Writing scholarship for young Palestinian writers. Dina was a student and teacher-poet for June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program from 2006 to 2009.