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The participants: Zaina Alsous is the author of the forthcoming A Theory of Birds and the chapbook Lemon Effigies. Her poetry and essays appear in The Offing, Glass, Abolition Journal, and elsewhere. Hayan Charara's books include Something Sinister, The Sadness of Others, and The Alchemist's Diary. He is also the editor of Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry. Safia Elhillo is the author of The January Children and the chapbook The Life and Times of Susie Knuckles. With Fatimah Asghar, she is the coeditor of the forthcoming Halal If You Hear Me. Marwa Helal is the author of I AM MADE TO LEAVE I AM MADE TO RETURN and Invasive species. Her poetry and journalism appear in journals such as Apogee, Hyperallergic, and The Offing. Philip Metres's books of poetry include Pictures at an Exhibition, Sand Opera, and A Concordance of Leaves. He also penned the critical study Behind Enemy Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront Since 1941. The following roundtable was convened during the summer of 2018. It began as an email exchange and then shifted to group text message.
Stephen Voyce: A series of recent anthologies, including Inclined to Speak (2008) and Dinarzad's Children (2004), have brought greater attention to twenty-first century Arab American writing, as have journals such as Mizna and Banipal, along with organizations such as RAWI (The Radius of Arab American writers). This has been accompanied by growing scholarly interest in Arab American writing from the broader academic community and publishing industry. Salah D. Hassan and Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman observe that despite a long history of writing by U.S. authors of Arab heritage, "prior to 9/11 Arab American writing received scant critical treatment and remained on the outer margins of U.S. literary studies." How do you view these recent developments?
Philip Metres: About ten years ago, I said that Arab American literature was in the beginning stages of a renaissance. Relative to other minority American literatures, Arab American writing is quite young. Less than a century has passed since the first flourishing of al-Mahjar (Pen Group) of Khalil Gibran, Ameen Rihani, and others, and that was followed by a long silence. Today, I feel with deep conviction that we're now in the full flourishing...