An evening with Acclaimed Author, Poet, and Proud UNRWA graduate: Ibtisam Barakat April 29, 2010 Washington, DC

An evening with

Acclaimed Author, Poet, and Proud UNRWA graduate:

Ibtisam Barakat

Thursday, April 29, 2010

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Zenobia Lounge, Georgetown

1025 31^st Street, NW

Washington, DC 20007

Please RSVP by calling (202) 223-3767 or by email to info@friendsunrwa.org

Ibtisam Barakat is a Palestinian-American writer, poet, and educator. A bilingual speaker of Arabic and English, Ibtisam grew up in Ramallah, West Bank, and now lives in the United States. Her work focuses on healing social injustices and the hurts of wars, especially those involving young people. She is the founder of Write Your Life seminars to empower people from various backgrounds to contribute to writing history by sharing their voices and stories.

Ibtisam’s memoir, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (FSG, 2007), about growing up under Israeli occupation following the 1967 Six-Day War, won numerous awards and honors, including the International Reading Association’s Best Non Fiction for YA, 2008; the Middle East Council Best Literature Book Award, 2007; the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children/ Young Adult Category, and has been translated to several languages.

An international speaker and human rights advocate though the arts, Ibtisam was a delegate to the 3^rd UN conference on the elimination of racism, represented Palestine in the 6^th World Poetry Conference in Venezuela, and this month she will be one of the judges in the semifinals for Poetry Out Loud, the national poetry recitation contest in all of US schools organized by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, to be concluded in Washington DC.

http://us.macmillan.com/tastingthesky

**********************************

Ibtisam Barakat ابتسام بركات " Let's -- In an acting improv meeting, we played the game Let's! Someone says "tigers" and we all say Let's! We all become tigers. We acted monkeys, flowers, other things. I said let's be Palestinians! Everyone said Let's and started to write on their hands or on the air. I realized I am the Palestinian they know! A wri...ter. So whatever I do is Palestinian. I almost cried with responsibility." -- Ibtisam Barakat 2010.

Celebrating some GREAT Palestinian-American Artists, Writers & Poets

• March Forth! The Index