Diana abu-jaber biography
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Diana Abu-Jaber was born in Syracuse, New York to an American mother and a Jordanian father. When she was seven, her family moved to Jordan for two years, and she has lived between the U.S. and Jordan ever since. The struggle to make sense of this sort of hybrid life, or “in-betweenness,” permeates Abu-Jaber’s fiction.
Her first novel, Arabian Jazz– considered by many to be the first mainstream Arab-American novel– won the 1994 Oregon Book award and prompted Jean Grant of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to say, “Abu-Jaber’s novel will probably do more to convince readers to abandon what media analyst Jack Shaheen calls America’s ‘abhorrence of the Arab’ than any number of speeches or publicity gambits.”
Her second novel, Crescent, which was inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, is set in contemporary Los Angeles and focuses on a multi-cultural love story between an Iraqi exile and an Iraqi-American chef. It won the PEN Center Award for Literary Fiction, the American Book Award and has been published in eight countries to date.
Again using cuisine as the fulcrum of her narrative, her next book– the culinary memoir The Language of Baklava– chronicles her own experiences growing up in
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Music Credit: “NY” composed and performed by Kosta T, from the cd Soul Sand. Used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.
Jo Reed: From the National Endowment for the Arts, This is Art Works. I’m Josephine Reed
Today a conversation with the extraordinary storyteller Diana Abu-Jaber, renowned for her literary fiction and memoirs that explore themes of culture and family often against a backdrop of food and recipes. She's the author of eight books, including the critically acclaimed memoirs "The Language of Baklava" and "Life Without a Recipe," and the novels "Birds of Paradise," and "Arabian Jazz," and most recently "Fencing with the King," a compelling story of family secrets, displacement, and the search for identity in a complex and ever-changing world.
Her work has been recognized with many honors, including a PEN Center USA Award and the Oregon Book Award which she’s won three times. Raised in a culturally diverse household with a Jordanian father and an Irish-American mother, Diana's experiences navigating these worlds has contributed to the richness and depth of her storytelling--- and that is exactly where I began my conversation with Diana Abu-Jaber.
Jo Reed: Diana, you grew up in a multicultural household and that is often at the heart of yo
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Diana Abu-Jaber
Called "outstanding" by representation Washington Pole, Diana's newest work, Fencing With rendering King, a novel present Middle Asian intrigue highest adventure, was featured lump Apple books, Goodreads.com, vital The Jillions as pick your way of that spring’s most-anticipated novels.
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Her young-adult novel, Silverworld, a imagination with small Arab-American young lady at university teacher heart, was published dense spring get round Crown Books / Slapdash House.
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