Thursday, October 14, 2010 7:00 pm

MESAAS Graduate Student Omar Khalifah will be reading from his first book entitled "Kaannani Ana (As if I Were Myself)"

Reading in Arabic and English followed by a discussion moderated by Professor Bashir Abu-Manneh

Kaannani Ana (As if I Were Myself) is Omar Khalifah's first book. A collection of Arabic short stories, a few of which previously published in Arabic literary periodicals, the book was published in Jordan last summer. It was received as a celebration of New York, Arabized and personalized. Written mostly in a first person narrative, the twelve stories of the collection take place in a real/imagined New York, with few glimpses at an Arab homeland that lurks distant and obscure.

Omar Khalifah is a PhD student at the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Deparment, Columbia University. He received his B.A and M.A in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Jordan, Amman. In 2006 he received a Fulbright fellowship and started his M.A at Columbia University.Bashir Abu-Manneh, Assistant Professor of English at Barnard College, joined the faculty in 2004. He has also taught at Columbia University and Wadham College, University of Oxford. At Barnard, Professor Abu-Manneh teaches courses in global literature, Palestinian and Israeli literatures, Marxism,and Postcolonialism. He is affiliated with Barnard's programs in African Studies and Comparative Literature. Professor Abu-Manneh has been the recipient of a Ford FoundationPost-doctoral Fellowship and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Fellowship.

Ahmad Diab is finishing his PhD at the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Department, New York University. He published a number of English translations of Arabic poetry in specialized journals. He received his B.A in English literature from Damascus University in 2003. In 2005 he won a Fulbright scholarship which funded his M.A. in English literature from City College of New York.

Alwan for the Arts 16 Beaver Street 4th Floor