Naomi Shihab Nye

On Thursday, March 26, 2020 the Center for Literary Arts will present poet Naomi Shihab Nye at the Student Union Theatre at 7PM. The reading will be followed by an on-stage interview with Persis Karim, professor in the Department of Comparative & World Literature at San Francisco State University, plus an audience Q&A, book sale and signing.

Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for students.

Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Red Suitcase, Words under the Words, Fuel, and You & Yours (a best-selling poetry book of 2006). She is also the author of Mint Snowball (paragraphs); Never in a Hurry and I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay?, Tales of Driving and Being Driven (essays); Habibi and Going, Going (novels for young readers); Baby Radar, Sitti’s Secrets, and Famous (picture books), and There Is No Long Distance Now (a collection of very short stories). Other works include several prizewinning poetry anthologies for young readers, including Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems & Paintings from the Middle East, What Have You Lost?, and Transfer. Her collection of poems for young adults entitled Honeybee won the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category. Her novel for children, The Turtle of Oman, was chosen both a Best Book of 2014 by The Horn Book and a 2015 Notable Children’s Book by the American Library Association. The Turtle of Oman was also awarded the 2015 Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature. Her most recent book is Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. Her new book of poems is entitled The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions Ltd., April 2019).

Persis Karim is the Neda Nobari Endowed Chair and Director for the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Department of Comparative & World Literature at San Francisco State University. Prior to 2017, she was a professor in the Department of English & Comparative Literature at San José State University for 18 years. Her poetry has been published in a number of publications including Reed Magazine, Callaloo, Caesura, The New York Times, The Raven’s Perch and others. She is also the editor of three anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature. Her manuscript, Accidental Architecture, was a finalist for the 2019 Catamaran Poetry Prize.