Najwa Barakat

Najwa Barakat is a prominent and active voice in the Arab literary world, addressing difficult themes with dark humor and gritty realism. Born in Beirut, she has written five novels in Arabic and one in French. In addition to her work as a novelist and journalist, Barakat has translated Camus’s Notebooks into Arabic and founded Mohtaraf, a program to train young Arab writers. Luke Leafgren received his PhD in comparative literature from Harvard University and holds BA degrees from Columbia and Oxford. He currently teaches Arabic at Harvard and serves as the dean of Mather House, one of the undergraduate dormitories. He translated Muhsin Al-Ramli’s Dates on My Fingers (AUC Press, 2014).