Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
National Book Award
Translator
Award-winning Poet
Readings &
Lecture Topics
- Arab American Literature
- Modern Arabic Literature
- Palestinian Poetry
- Literary Translation
- Lyric Poetry
- Generative Poetry Workshops
- An Evening with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Biography
“It’s nearly impossible to write poetry that holds the human desire for joy and the insistent agitations of protest at the same time, but Lena Khalaf Tuffaha does just that. Her elegant poems sing the fractured songs of Diaspora while remaining clear-eyed to the cause of the fracturing: the multinational hubris of colonialism and greed. Khalaf Tuffaha reminds us that love isn’t an idea; it is a radical act. Especially for those who, like this poet, travel through the world vigilantly, but steadfastly remain heart first.” —Adrian Matejka, author of Somebody Else Sold the World
“Tuffaha’s most recent collection is essential reading. Something About Living should be in every classroom, every library. This is a rallying cry at its most lyrical, most poignant. I can’t say it enough: you need to read this book.” —The Poetry Question
“This superb volume sings of those determined to fight for a fairer future.” —Publishers Weekly
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry; Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press, 2023), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and Water & Salt (Red Hen, 2017), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for the 2018 Arab American Award. Tuffaha is also the author of two chapbooks, Arab in Newsland (Two Sylvias Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and Letters from the Interior (Diode, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.
On her most recent collection, the judges citation for the 2024 National Book Award reads, “Something About Living opens with a single bird and ends in a dazzling meteor shower, and in between lies something of a marvel—an electric and sobering song crackling with possibilities for a homeland fractured and besieged by Empire. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha writes, ‘Love is paying attention,’ and this impressive collection serves as a powerful exemplar of devotion—brilliantly rendered in surprising forms—and profoundly teaches us ‘a million ways to love.'”
Tuffaha was born in Seattle, Washington but raised in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. She has lived the experiences of first-generation American, immigrant, and expatriate. Her heritage is Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian, and she is fluent in both Arabic and English. She has lived in and traveled across the Arab world, and many of her poems are inspired by the experience of crossing cultural, geographic, and political borders, borders between languages, and borders between the present and the living past.
Her writing has appeared in journals including Los Angeles Review of Books, Michigan Quarterly Revie, the Nation, Poets.org, Protean, Prairie Schooner, and many others. Tuffaha’s work has also been anthologized widely, including in The Long Devotion (Georgia Press), We Call to the Eye and the Night (Persea Press), and Gaza Unsilenced (Just World Books).
She was the translator and curator of the 2022 series “Poems from Palestine” at the Baffler magazine. In 2024, she curated a year-long subscription of Palestinian poetry books with Open Books, Seattle’s poetry-only bookstore. Tuffaha spent ten years working with journalists and editors as a volunteer for Seattle’s Arab American community organizations. She helped to tell the stories of people living between two homelands, people who speak in translation and navigate the realities of long wars.
Tuffaha earned her Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop. She lives with her family in Redmond, Washington.
Short Bio
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry; Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press, 2023), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and Water & Salt (Red Hen, 2017), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for the 2018 Arab American Award. Her writing has appeared in journals including Los Angeles Review of Books, Michigan Quarterly Revie, the Nation, Poets.org, Protean, Prairie Schooner, and many others. Tuffaha’s work has also been anthologized widely, including in The Long Devotion (Georgia Press), We Call to the Eye and the Night (Persea Press), and Gaza Unsilenced (Just World Books). She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop. Tuffaha lives with her family in Redmond, Washington.
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Publications
Something about Living
Poetry, 2024
It’s nearly impossible to write poetry that holds the human desire for joy and the insistent agitations of protest at the same time, but Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s gorgeous and wide-ranging new collection Something About Living does just that.
Her poems interweave Palestine’s historic suffering, the challenges of living in this world full of violence and ill will, and the gentle delights we embrace to survive that violence. Khalaf Tuffaha’s elegant poems sing the fractured songs of Diaspora while remaining clear-eyed to the cause of the fracturing: the multinational hubris of colonialism and greed.
This collection is her witness to our collective unraveling, vowel by vowel, syllable by syllable.
Kaan and Her Sisters
Poetry, 2023
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s Kaan and Her Sisters illuminates the work of grief and survival, the sordid legacies of official historical record and the liberatory practice of intimate narration. Tuffaha writes in the liminal space between languages, personifying Arabic verbs who guide the reader through a “history hurtling into the future.” Kaan and Her Sisters centers character of the Arabic teacher, Miss Sahar, whose progressive displacements from Palestine and across Arab cities unfold in epistles, refashioned songs, and glimpses into the interiors of her lost home. In these disclosures, a study of time and a record of resistance to erasure emerges, and at its heart, the women who keep intergenerational memory. “Our mothers miraculous, persevering./No maps are new to the ancestors.”
Letters from the Interior
Poetry, 2019
In the early days of January 2011, a series of revolution began to unfold across several Arab cities. Some toppled regimes, others unraveled into bitter, protracted wars still ablaze today. More often than not, the experience of Arab womanhood unfolds against a backdrop of ongoing wars, unravelling freedom movements, and exiles. Women are tasked with the extensive and relentless work of preserving life, of keeping histories and the human beings populating them alive. The poems in Letters from the Interior are artifacts of this work. These poems are sketches of the homes we create on the run and in exile, lyrics of songs that expand to lament much more than our individual heartbreaks, unsent letters to the women who anchor us, and language lessons that navigate the landscapes of time and place.
Water & Salt
Poetry, 2017
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s debut, Water & Salt, sings in the voices of people ravaged by cycles of war and news coverage. These poems alternately rage, laugh, celebrate and grieve, singing in the voices of people ravaged by cycles of war and news coverage and inviting the reader to see the human lives lived beyond the headlines.
Arab in Newsland
Poetry, 2017
Arab In Newsland won the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize and was chosen by contest judge, January Gill O’Neil.
Praise for Arab In Newsland:
Whenever she turns on the ‘never good news,’ Lena Khalaf Tuffaha sees her relatives in Syria, Jordan, and Palestine in pain and turmoil. She sees beloved cities blasted to rubble. She knows that ‘when darkness arrives the blue glow / of screens will bring you no warmth.’ What does allow us refuge is her beating heart, her wide and generous intelligence. These poems take us deep into the inside story of devastation and despair. These poems make us more human. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s brilliant poems are gifts of grace. —Peggy Shumaker
Articles & Audio
Read What’s In Print:
- National Book Award Winner Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Calls on Writers to Oppose Israeli’s Genocide — Democracy Now!
- “Bridges of Verse: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s Journey Through Identity and Advocacy” — MORIA Online
- “Our Girls: Notes on Poetry and Palestinian Motherhood — Poetry Northwest
- The City and the Writer: In Amman with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Words Without Borders
- “Personal Essay” — Prairie Schooner
- The Pitfalls of Counter-Terror Literary Analysis — Kenyon Review
- Translating Palestine: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Interviews Huda Fakhreddine — Words Without Borders
- 10 Questions for Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Massachusetts Review
Listen to Audio:
Selected Writings
Mountain, Stone
