Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (born 1975) is a Palestinian American poet, essayist, and translator.[1][2] She is the author of three poetry collections and two chapbooks, including Something About Living, which won the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.[3][4]
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha | |
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.jpg) Tuffaha reading at the 2024 National Book Awards | |
| Born | 1975 (age 50–51) Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
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| Education | |
| Notable works | Something About Living |
| Notable awards |
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| Website | |
| lenakhalaftuffaha | |
Her first collection, Water & Salt, won the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry. Something About Living won the same award in 2025, as well as the 2025 George Ellenbogen Poetry Award.[5][6]
Early life and education
editTuffaha was born in Seattle in 1975.[1] She grew up in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait before returning to the United States in September 1990.[1] University of Washington Magazine described her heritage as Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian.[7]
She earned a BA in comparative literature from the University of Washington and an MFA in poetry from Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop.[2][1]
Career
editIn 2002, The Seattle Times quoted Tuffaha as an outreach worker for the Seattle chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.[8] In 2005, she co-founded the Institute for Middle East Understanding.[1]
Tuffaha's chapbook Arab in Newsland won the 2016 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize and was published by Two Sylvias Press in 2017.[9] Her debut full-length collection, Water & Salt, was published by Red Hen Press in 2017 and won the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry.[10][5]
In 2017, Tuffaha was named the inaugural poet-in-residence at Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Seattle.[1] Her chapbook Letters from the Interior was published by Diode Editions in 2019.[11] She received a 2019 Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship.[12]
Her second full-length collection, Kaan and Her Sisters, was published by Trio House Press in 2023.[13] It was a finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award in poetry.[14]
Tuffaha's third full-length collection, Something About Living, was published by the University of Akron Press in 2024. It won the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize and the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.[15][3][4] The book was selected for the 2025 American Library Association Notable Books List in poetry and shortlisted for the 2025 PEN Heaney Prize.[16][17] In 2025, it won the Washington State Book Award for Poetry and the George Ellenbogen Poetry Award at the Arab American Book Awards.[5][6]
Tuffaha's writing has appeared in journals including the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.[18] As a translator and editor, she was the translator and curator of the 2022 series Poems from Palestine at The Baffler and later curated the Words Without Borders series Against Silence: Palestinian Writing in English.[18][1]
Reception
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In The Rumpus, Jenna Lê reviewed Water & Salt as a debut collection concerned with the capacity of language to convey "both beauty and horror". Lê also wrote that Tuffaha's verse was "rich with subtle verbal maneuvers" and discussed the collection's use of anaphora and multilingual experience.[19]
Publishers Weekly called Kaan and Her Sisters an "imaginative and searching collection" and wrote that it uses intergenerational memory to examine survival, violence, family, and displacement.[20] Reviewing Something About Living, the same magazine described Tuffaha's collection as a "superb volume" about homeland, heritage, and a "fairer future".[21] In Poetry Northwest, Robin Myers wrote that there is "no consolation" in Something About Living and analyzed the book's repetition and documentary modes in relation to Palestinian dispossession.[22]
Works
editPoetry collections
edit- Arab in Newsland. Two Sylvias Press. 2017. ISBN 978-0-9986314-9-3.[9]
- Water & Salt. Red Hen Press. 2017. ISBN 978-1-59709-029-2.[10]
- Letters from the Interior. Diode Editions. 2019. ISBN 978-1-939728-33-3.[11]
- Kaan and Her Sisters. Trio House Press. 2023. ISBN 978-1-949487-14-5.[13]
- Something About Living. University of Akron Press. 2024. ISBN 978-1-62922-273-8.[15]
References
edit- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Farah, Summer (April 30, 2025). "For Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Joy and Grief Are Intertwined". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "About Lena Khalaf Tuffaha". Academy of American Poets. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Something About Living". National Book Foundation. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 Italie, Hillel (November 20, 2024). "Percival Everett and Jason De León win National Book Awards". Associated Press. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 3 Pai, Shin Yu (September 18, 2025). "Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, '08, wins her second Washington State Book Award". University of Washington Magazine. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "19th Annual Arab American Book Awards Amplify the Voices of Arab America Today". Arab American National Museum. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ Pai, Shin Yu (January 7, 2025). "Poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha wins the National Book Award in poetry for "Something About Living"". University of Washington Magazine. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ "Silent walk speaks of hope for peace". The Seattle Times. March 31, 2002. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Lena Khalaf Tuffaha". Two Sylvias Press. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Water & Salt". Red Hen Press. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Letters from the Interior by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha". Diode Editions. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ "End of Year Campaign Artist Spotlight: Lena Tuffaha". Artist Trust. November 13, 2019. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Lena Khalaf Tuffaha". Trio House Press. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ "2024 Firecracker Awards Finalists Announced". Publishers Weekly. May 15, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Something About Living". The University of Akron Press. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ Moore, Ninah (January 26, 2025). "2025 Notable Books List Announced: Year's Best in Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry". RUSA Update. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ "PEN Heaney Prize 2025 shortlist". English PEN. October 23, 2025. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- 1 2 "Lena Khalaf Tuffaha". National Book Foundation. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ Lê, Jenna (July 28, 2017). "Both Beauty and Horror: Water & Salt by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha". The Rumpus. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ "Kaan and Her Sisters". Publishers Weekly. July 10, 2023. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ "Something About Living". Publishers Weekly. November 13, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
- ↑ Myers, Robin (April 25, 2025). "Every Empire Sings Itself a Lullaby: On Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's Something about Living". Poetry Northwest. Retrieved April 24, 2026.