Dunya Mikhail

Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi poet, born in 1965 and living in America. She obtained a B.A. in English Literature from Baghdad University and a Masters in Eastern Literatures from Wayne State University in the U.S. She currently teaches Arabic Language and Literature at Oakland University, Michigan. She has published nine books in Arabic, several of which have been translated into English, Chinese, French, Hindi, Italian and Polish. Her first book in English, The War Works Hard (2005, translated by Elizabeth Winslow), was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea (2009), which Mikhail co-translated with Elizabeth Winslow, won the 2010 Arab American Book Award and The Beekeeper of Sinjar: Rescuing the Kidnapped Women of Iraq (co-translated with Max Weiss), was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature 2018. Mikhail’s poetry collection The Iraqi Nights (2014) was translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.