Naomi Shihab Nye's New Book
Born to a Palestinian father and an America mother, Naomi Shihab Nye has been writing her entire life.
Nye tells us that it was her school librarians who encouraged to start writing as a child and to begin sending her work out.
Since then, Nye has published around 35 books and was named a National Book Award finalist for “19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East.”
This year at the San Antonio Book Festival Nye will be talking about her novel “The Turtles of Oman.”
“It is about a boy and his grandfather. And the boy is living in the country of Oman, a country which fascinated me since I was a little child,” said Nye.
Not only will Nye be presenting but she is also looking forward to listening to other authors and working with an oral history project about writers living in San Antonio.
“Think of the San Antonio Book Festival as a one day, compact Fiesta for readers and writers. It’s a Fiesta of language.”
Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her BA in English and world religions from Trinity University.
Nye is the author of numerous books of poems, includingTransfer (BOA Editions, 2011); You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East; Fuel (BOA Editions, 1998); Red Suitcase(BOA Editions, 1994); and Hugging the Jukebox (Far Corner Books, 1982).
She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi (Simon Pulse, 1997), for which she received the Jane Addams Children’s Book award in 1998.
Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit. About her work, the poet William Stafford has said, “her poems combine transcendent liveliness and sparkle along with warmth and human insight. She is a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart. Reading her work enhances life.”
Her poems and short stories have appeared in various journals and reviews throughout North America, Europe, and the Middle and Far East. She has traveled to the Middle East and Asia for the United States Information Agency three times, promoting international goodwill through the arts.
Nye’s honors include awards from the International Poetry Forum and the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, and four Pushcart Prizes. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow. In 1988, she received The Academy of American Poets’ Lavan Award, selected by W. S. Merwin.
She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2009. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Selected Bibliography
Transfer (BOA Editions, 2011)
You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005)
19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East(Greenwillow Books, 2002)
Fuel (BOA Editions, 1998)
Red Suitcase (BOA Editions, 1994)
Hugging the Jukebox (Far Corner Books, 1982)
Source: www.ksat.com