What a delightful surprise: This year’s Reading the World initiative includes a collection of poems by Taha Muhammad Ali, translated by Gabriel Levin, Yahya Hijazi, and Peter Cole. (Cole, you’ll remember, is a certified Genius.) The book is called So What: New and Selected Poems, 1971-2005. Here is a sample poem by Taha Muhammad Ali. (Original Arabic here). I dare you not to cry when you read it.
Who is Laila Lalami
Laila Lalami is the award winning and best selling author of six books.
What books has Laila Lalami written?
Laila has written the novels, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, The Moor's Account, The Other Americans, and The Dream Hotel.
What awards has Laila Lalami won?
Laila Lalami has won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, the Hurston-Write Legacy Award, a Guggenheim a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship, and a British Council Fellowship. Her work has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Booker Prize, the Women's Prize, and the Edgar Allan Poe Award.