Fayetteville, Arkansas
Recent works: E-mails from Scheherazade, 2003; Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque, 1999
Favorite Writers: Nizar Kabbani spoke to me in an accent I understood in the oldest cell of my body. Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy is worth its weight in tears. Marvin X is too extreme for many, but I like strong voices even if I don’t agree with everything they say.
Quote: I don’t write just to make different peoples comfortable with each other or to right “misunderstandings”—I think people need to face their real discomfort with each other first, and see what that’s about—because it often has to do with real injustices requiring collective action to change. So I’m against a surface level of “tolerance” that is too glibly reached. I root for writing to be aesthetic and socially conscious, beautiful and brainy, dynamic, provocative and speaking truth to power.
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