Lifelines: The Literature of Women's Human Rights, American University, 2003

A Poetry and Prose Reading

Event Details

  • Time

    05:00pm

  • Date

    06 Mar, 2003

  • Location

    • Kay Spiritual Center
    • American University Washington, DC
  • Contact

    WLP

Azar Nafisi

Director of the SAIS Dialogue Project at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies

In celebration of International Women’s Day, four leading international women authors will read their poetry and prose on women’s human rights and address current human rights violations and social realities facing women around the world today. This event is held in collaboration with The Center for Global Peace at American University, and will feature Nathalie Handal, Azar Nafisi, Sonia Sanchez, and Reetika Vazirani.

Literature can weave lifelines connecting the listener to testimonies that inspire and call for solidarity. Women’s voices resonate across divides to convey understanding and appreciation for the pain of exile, torture, violence and war, and the possibility of starting fresh, of healing, safety, and peace.

Reader-Authors:

Nathalie Handal is French-American poet and playwright, originally of a Palestinian family from Bethlehem. Her poems and articles have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11. Her works include The NeverField, Traveling Rooms, and The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology.

Azar Nafisi is Director of the SAIS Dialogue Project at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She has lectured and written extensively on the political implications of culture and literature. This will be the first reading from her new book Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.

Sonia Sanchez, poet and activist, has authored over 16 books including Wounded in the House of a Friend, Does Your House Have Lions, and Like the Singing Coming off the Drums. She is a recipient of numerous awards––including the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, the Lucretia Mott Award, and the American Book Award. Her most recent work is Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems.

Reetika Vazirani is an Indian American poet and winner of the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. She is the author of World Hotel and White Elephants, and a recipient of the Pushcart Prize. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Best American Poetry 2000, Paris Review, Meridian, and The Nation.

2003 Lifelines
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