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Hala Alyan

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Hala Alyan
Born (1986-07-27) July 27, 1986 (age 38)
Carbondale, Illinois, U.S.
NationalityPalestinian-American
Alma materRutgers University
Occupations
Awards2013 - Arab American Book Award
2018 - Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Websitewww.halaalyan.com

Hala Alyan (born July 27, 1986) is a Palestinian-American writer, poet, and clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, addiction, and cross-cultural behavior. Her writing covers aspects of identity and the effects of displacement, particularly within the Palestinian diaspora. She is also known for acting in the short films I Say Dust and Tallahassee (directed by Darine Hotait).[1][2]

Biography

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Hala Alyan was born in Carbondale, Illinois, on July 27, 1986. Her family lived in Kuwait after her birth but sought political asylum in the United States when Iraqi forces invaded the country.[3]

She received her doctorate in clinical psychology at Rutgers University and is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology at New York University.[4] She and her husband live in Brooklyn, New York.[5]

Awards and works

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Alyan's poems have been published in various journals and literary magazines including The New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Guernica, Jewish Currents among others.[6][7][non-primary source needed][8][9]

In her first novel, Salt Houses, the Yacoub family is forced to leave their home in Nablus, Palestine in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. They move to Kuwait City and reluctantly try and rebuild their life. But when Sadam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, the family again lose their home, their land and their story, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston and beyond.[10][11]

In 2013, Alyan's poetry collection, Atrium, received an award from the Arab American National Museum.[12][13] In 2018, she won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, an award given to writers whose writing is believed to promote peace.[14][15] She was also a visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris in the fall of 2018.

Her second novel, The Arsonists' City, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on March 9, 2021[16] to critical acclaim.[17][18][19] The novel is about the Nasr family, which reunites in Beirut to discuss the family patriarch's will, revealing family secrets and the impact of war and violence on the family.[20]

Bibliography

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Novels

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Poetry

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Collections
  • Atrium (2005)
  • Four Cities (2015)
  • Hijra (2016)
  • The Twenty-Ninth Year (2019)
  • The Moon That Turns You Back (2024)
Anthologies
  • We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage (2023) edited by Hala Alyan & Zeina Hashem Beck

Essays

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  • "'I am not there and I am not here': a Palestinian American poet on bearing witness to atrocity" in The Guardian (January 28, 2024)[21]
  • "The Power of Changing Your Mind" in TIME (January 17, 2024)[22]
  • "What a Palestinian-American Wants You To Know about Dehumanization" in Teen Vogue (December 20, 2023)[23]
  • If Palestinian Freedom Makes You Uneasy, Ask Yourself Why" in The New York Times (November 1, 2023)[24]
  • "The Palestine Double Standard" in The New York Times (October 25, 2023)[25]
  • A Letter to My Husband" in Emergency Magazine (January 21, 2019)[26]
  • "In Dust," essay appearing in Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, edited by Yasir Suleiman (2016)[9]

References

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  1. ^ Zaineldine, Amina (October 17, 2021). "'Tallahassee' Tackles Mental Health Stigma in Arab-American Communities". egyptianstreets.com. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
  2. ^ "I Say Dust". newfilmmakersonline.com. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
  3. ^ Keyes, Claire. "'Ink Knows No Borders' tells story of immigrant and refugee experience through poetry". North of Boston. Archived from the original on July 11, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
  4. ^ "Hala Nafez Alyan | NYU Steinhardt". steinhardt.nyu.edu. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  5. ^ Masad, Ilana (May 3, 2017). "Middle East, Middle Class: Pain and Privilege in Hala Alyan's 'Salt Houses'". Los Angeles. Retrieved November 3, 2018.
  6. ^ Alyan, Hala (December 1, 2014). "Meals". Missouri Review. University of Missouri. Retrieved November 3, 2018.
  7. ^ LaBerge, Peter; Biggs, Garrett (August 2017). "CAN I APOLOGIZE NOW". The Adroit Journal (22). Retrieved November 3, 2018.
  8. ^ Magazine, Poetry (March 4, 2019). "Honeymoon by Hala Alyan". Poetry Foundation.
  9. ^ a b Being Palestinian : personal reflections on Palestinian identity in the diaspora. Yasir Suleiman. Edinburgh. 2016. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-7486-3403-3. OCLC 963672141.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. ^ "Salt Houses". Goodreads. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  11. ^ "Code Switch Book Club, Summer 2019". NPR.org.
  12. ^ "2013 Arab American Book Award Winners". Arab American National Museum. Archived from the original on November 3, 2018. Retrieved November 3, 2018.
  13. ^ Foundation, Poetry (March 3, 2019). "Hala Alyan". Poetry Foundation.
  14. ^ Hemley, Robin. "2018 Fiction Winner - Salt Houses". Dayton Literary Peace Prize. The Ohio Public Library Network. Retrieved November 3, 2018.
  15. ^ "Hala Alyan, Ta-Nehisi Coates win Dayton Literary Peace Prize". AP NEWS. September 19, 2018.
  16. ^ "The Arsonists' City". Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  17. ^ "Fiction Book Review: The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26 (464p) ISBN 978-0-358-12655-3". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved October 16, 2021.
  18. ^ Salam, Maya (March 9, 2021). "A Family Reunites in Beirut, Where the Past Is Never Past". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 16, 2021.
  19. ^ THE ARSONISTS' CITY | Kirkus Reviews.
  20. ^ "The Arsonists' City". BookPage | Discover your next great book!. February 6, 2021. Retrieved October 16, 2021.
  21. ^ Alyan, Hala (January 28, 2024). "'I am not there and I am not here': a Palestinian American poet on bearing witness to atrocity". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  22. ^ "The Power of Changing Your Mind". TIME. January 17, 2024. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  23. ^ "What a Palestinian-American Wants You To Know About Dehumanization". Teen Vogue. December 20, 2023. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  24. ^ Alyan, Hala; Darbha, Vishakha (November 1, 2023). "Opinion | If Palestinian Freedom Makes You Uneasy, Ask Yourself Why". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  25. ^ Alyan, Hala (October 25, 2023). "Opinion | The Palestine Double Standard". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  26. ^ "A Letter to my Husband – Hala Alyan". Emergence Magazine. January 21, 2019. Retrieved March 3, 2024.

Further reading

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Wael Salam. (2022) The Burden of the Past: Memories, Resistance and Existence in Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin and Hala Alyan's Salt Houses. Interventions 24:1, pages 31–48. doi:10.1080/1369801X.2020.1863840

Wael Salam. (2022) The Palestinian Re-experience of Historical Violence: “A Wound Never Completely Scabbed Over”. English Studies 103:1, pages 94–112. doi:10.1080/0013838X.2021.1997469

Salam, Wael J., and Safi Mahfouz. “Claims of memory: Transgenerational traumas,: fluid identities, and resistance in Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 56, no. 3 (2020): 296–309. doi:10.1080/17449855.2020.1755718

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