A young Arab-American woman’s list of hopes for Arab-American Literature

Author of A MAP OF HOME

Randa Jarrar "I’m lucky enough to teach an Arab-American lit class at Fresno State– it’s officially an Arab-American Women’s Fiction class, but I also teach some poetry, comics, and non-fiction, too– and one of the assignments I gave my class was to think about what direction they think Arab-American literature seems to be going, and what direction they think it ought to go. Lots of students felt that it wasn’t their place, as White, Latino/a, or Asian-Americans, to tell Arab-American writers what to write about. But they wrote wonderful short essays anyway, asking Arab-American writers to write more Sci-Fi, less food porn, more literary fiction, less politically-centered narratives, more literature in general. There were lots of great responses, but I wanted to share this particular response from a young student...READ MORE