about

Rula Jurdi is a poet, novelist, scholar, and literary translator. She was born in Venezuela and grew up in Lebanon. She was 11 years old when the Lebanese Civil War broke out leaving an indelible mark on her understanding of self, religion, and nation, reflected in her early poems and novels. Despite the ravages of war, she ranked second in her High School exams nationwide, and went on to complete her undergraduate studies in Anthropology at the American University of Beirut graduating in 1983, a year after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. She left to the US afterwards, achieving an MA in Anthropology and a Ph.D. in Islamic History, with a minor in Modern Arabic Literature, at Yale University. She received several distinguished awards and fellowships for her academic work.

She has three collections of poetry in Arabic; The Heart’s Peel (Ghilaf al-qalb), 2013; Like Layla or the Five Cities (Ka-Layla aw ka’l-mudun al-khams), 2015, and Beyond the Rose (Ma ba`da al-warda), 2022. She writes poetry in both Arabic and English. Her poems have appeared in PULP Literature Magazine, Asymptote, al-Adab, al-Tariq, Mïtra, Les éscrits, Voice, Tahawwulat, al-Mizan, alarabi aljadeed, al-Safir, al-Ahram al-Thaqafi, and others. Her poem, “gaze” was shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, Fall 2022, and her poem “Oral” was shortlisted for the Magpie Poetry Award, Fall 2018, and her poem “Coaxial Cables” was chosen for translation into Chinese in Fleurs des Lettres, 2020. She is also a translator of contemporary English and French poetry into Arabic.

She has three novels in Arabic; Thick Air (al-Kathafa), 2007; Camera Obscura (Fi `ulbat al-daw’), 2017; One Hundred Flutters (Mi’atu ra`sha), 2021. Her novel Camera Obscura has won wide acclaim and received the Khayrallah Prize 2020 in the area of literature. It was translated into English by Maia Tabet and will appear in print soon.

Rula is a co-founder and editor of Mïtra, Revue d’art et de littérature, a multi-lingual electronic magazine of art and literature (2016-) http://mitra.ca