Nathalie Handal
| Nathalie Handal | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
July 29, 1969 Haiti |
| Occupation | Poet, writer, playwright |
| Nationality | French, American |
| Ethnicity | Arab |
| Alma mater |
Bennington College, University of London |
| Notable works | The Neverfield Poem, The Lives of Rain, Love and Strange Horses, Poet in Andalucía, The Republics |
| Notable awards | Lannan Foundation Fellow, Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, Menada Literary Award, Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award, PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, Gift of Freedom Award, Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing |
| Website | |
| www |
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Nathalie Handal (Arabic: نتالي حنظل) (born 29 July 1969) is an award-winning poet, writer, and playwright.
Nathalie Handal is a French-American poet and playwright born in Haiti to a Palestinian family from Bethlehem. Having lived in France, United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Arab world, the writer-poet-playwright is acutely aware of the commonality of the human experience and of the fact that "we don't exist in the jointed way that we should.” The cadence of Nathalie Handal’s voice resembles her nomadic life. She explains, “I don’t have a mother tongue. I grew up speaking many languages, and these different languages have slipped into my English. My English is cross-fertilized with French, Spanish, Arabic, Creole…I love the idea of a bridge of words, a bridge of poems connecting us...showing us what it means to be human.” As a result, her books are written in English but laced with Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, Creole, and even Russian and Sanskrit words.
After earning a MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College, Vermont and a MPhil in English and Drama at the University of London, Handal became interested in the writing of Arab women in the 1990s. She currently has residences in both New York City and Paris, and is a professor at Columbia University.
Handal is the author of five books of poetry, several plays and the editor of two anthologies. She is a Lannan Foundation Fellow, Centro Andaluz de las Letras Fellow, Fondazione di Venezia Fellow, recipient of the Alejo Zuloaga Order in Literature 2011, the AE Ventures Fellowship, an Honored Finalist for the 2009 Gift of Freedom Award, and was shortlisted for New London Writers Awards and The Arts Council of England Writers Awards. She has also been involved as a writer, director, or producer in over twenty theatrical or film productions. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, such as Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Guardian, World Literature Today, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry New Zealand, Guernica Magazine, and The Nation; and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. She was the featured poet in the PBS NewsHour on April 20, 2009. Her book The Lives of Rain was shortlisted for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and received the Menada Literary Award and Love and Strange Horses is the winner of the 2011 Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY Award), and an Honorable Mention at the San Francisco Book Festival and the New England Book Festival. The critically acclaimed Poet in Andalucía (2012) consists of “poems of depth and weight, and the sorrowing song of longing and resolve.” The flash collection The Republics is lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers” and the winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing.
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