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Laila Halaby
Laila Halaby was born in Lebanon to a Jordanian father and American mother. Her novels include West of the Jordan (recipient of a PEN Beyond Margins Award) and Once in a Promised Land, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Authors selection and one of The Washington Post’s top 100 works of fiction for 2007, both published by Beacon Press. Her novel Woman, Be My Country, which was excerpted in Banipal 38 – Arab American Authors, p130-137 (Summer 2010 issue) when a work in progress, will be published by Beacon Press in September 2027.
In addition, her works include a memoir, The Weight of Ghosts (Red Hen Press), and two collections of poetry, why an author writes to a guy holding a fish (2leaf Press) and my name on his tongue (Syracuse University Press), and fiction for children.
She was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship for study of folklore in Jordan, which led to (a yet unpublished) collection entitled Tracks in the Sand. She holds two master’s degrees, in Near Eastern Languages and Culture from UCLA, and in Counseling from Loyola Marymount University. he lives with her family in Tucson, Arizona.
For more about Laila Halaby go to her website: https://lailahalaby.net/
photo credit: Shelley Welander
Contributor's Issues
An Iraqi in Paris by Samuel Shimon
The Cinderellas of Muscat by Huda Hamed (Banipal Books, 2025)
The Tent Generations
Things I Left Behind by Shada Mustafa, translated by Nancy Roberts
Shadow of the Sun by Taleb Alrefai
Birds of Nabaa, A Mauritanian Tale by Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah
The Stone Serpent, Barates of Palmyra’s Elegy for Regina his Beloved by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Mansi A Rare Man in His Own Way by Tayeb Saleh (Banipal Books, 2020)
Tayeb Salih
Goat Mountain by Habib Selmi
Habib Selmi, author of Goat Mountain and 3 times shortlisted for the IPAF
The Mariner by Taleb Alrefai (Banipal Books, 2020)
Taleb Alrefai, author of Shadow of the Sun and The Mariner
Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures by Fadhil al-Azzawi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Fadhil al-Azzawi
Poems of Alexandria and New York by Ahmed Morsi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Saïd Khatibi
Amjad Nasser (1955–2019)
Digital Banipal the full archive
Ahmed Morsi, author of Poems of Alexandria and New York
Sarajevo Firewood
The Madness of Despair
LATEST NEWS
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Reprint out now
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Link to poems by Mosab Abu Toha, published in Banipal 71 (Summer 2021), available to read online
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Link to poem by Liana Badr published in Banipal 74, now available as an online selection
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GRIFFIN PRIZE SHORTLIST 2023
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Banipal's first audiobook* * *
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Banipal Book Club
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