RANDA JARRAR

This year has been incredibly bountiful and wonderful. I traveled like crazy- to London, Paris, Greece, Germany, and coast to coast. My partner and I got married in a beautiful outdoor ceremony. We decided to move south, back to Austin, and he took a courageous step towards a new career.

I hope next year will bring a new teaching job, more readers, and more peace and equality to all.

In case you missed it, here are a couple of new publications:

In the New York Times Magazine: The Missing-Piece Son

In Five Chapters: Accidental Transients

And look for an essay in The Progressive next month.

Beirut39, a Hay Festival project, aims to celebrate 39 of the most interesting Arab writers under the age of 40. There’s an article in The National about this…Here’s an excerpt:

Around 500 young authors from across the Arab world as well as the Arab diaspora in Europe and America submitted their works. The vast majority of these texts were written in Arabic…

The 39 authors will travel to Beirut in April for four days of literary talks, debates and recitals. Libraries, bookshops, cafes and universities will welcome visitors to discuss the issues at the heart of Arab contemporary fiction. The festival hopes to attract a diverse audience, reflecting the power of writing to stimulate social cohesion and cultural understanding.

To mark the occasion, Bloomsbury will publish Beirut39, an anthology of fiction and poetry by the selected authors with an introduction by the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. The book will be published in English and Arabic in the UK, the US and the Arab world.

I’m so honored and excited to be a part of such a special project! Stay tuned for more details and adventures.

The paperback edition of A MAP OF HOME is now available from Penguin books.

You can get it at your local bookstore or on Amazon, Powells, or B&Noble.

About the book: Randa Jarrar’s fresh, funny and fearless debut novel chronicles the coming-of-age of Nidali, one of the most unique and irrepressible narrators in contemporary fiction. Born in 1970s Boston to an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, the rebellious Nidali—whose name is a feminization of the word “struggle”— soon moves to a very different life in Kuwait. There the family leads a mildly eccentric middle-class existence—until the Iraqi invasion drives them first to Egypt and then to Texas. With echoes of Jhumpa Lahiri and Marjane Satrapi, this critically acclaimed debut novel is set to capture the hearts of everyone who’s ever wondered what their own map of home might look like.

Also, I did an interview with Zocalo which you can read here.

The Austin-American Statesman profiled me in their Books section.

Electronic Intifada, which I love, reviewed my book here.

Enjoy!

Here are the German and Taiwanese editions of my novel. They’re both so cool! I love how bicycles figure into most of the covers for the book. My bicycle always symbolized freedom for me when I was a teenager. When I won the Hopwood award, the first thing I bought was a cool cruiser with 21 gears. Now it’s in the basement. Must dig it up and take a celebratory, summer ride!

Click to enlarge

A Map of Home has won the Arab American Book Award for best fiction of 2008. Woo hoo! The ceremony will take place in November at the Natioanl Arab American Museum in Dearborn. Other winners include Naomi Shihab Nye and Suheir Hammad. We’re gonna party!

Also, my german book tour is shaping up for September to coincide with the German edition of the novel. I’ll post details soon.

And last, the Penguin paperback is now available to preorder. Check out the snazzy new cover!

I’m currently preparing to move, writing, and reading: State of Grace, Joy Williams; Maggie the Mechanic, Jaime Hernandez; and One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty. It’s finally warm in Michigan! I’m also putting together my paperback tour for A Map of Home. Want me to visit your town? Drop me a line at randajarrar on the g to the mail.

Okay, been receiving lots of email asking for clarification. What do I mean I will “miss” Michigan? Am I leaving?  Yes, I sure is. I’ve completed the MFA program and a year of full-load teaching. I am heading back to Austin, the only place on this planet where I truly feel at home. This won’t happen until late July or early August.  I am not going there for any practical reason, I only want to take a year off from working and teaching to concentrate on the new novel (which is going well) and on revising my short story collection.  These are my goals.  I will possibly end up spending the year revising several hundred bottles of Lone Star and seeing bands and swimming at Barton Springs.  But a little fun never heard nobody’s creativity.

A few weeks ago, I was chillin’ at my usual coffee shop/writing spot (literally one spot: I superstitiously refuse to sit anywhere else, and when someone is already sitting there, I use my voodoo skillz to get them to leave) when a malnourished pale man began yelling to Lily, my favorite barista.
“Why don’t you carry donuts?”
“We just don’t.”
“If you get some, they should be from Dino’s. You ever been to that place? It rocks.”
“Where is it?”
“Out on Stadium. The best donuts ever.”
“Better than the ones at Washtenaw dairy?” I ventured.
“Way better. It’s amazing.”
“It’s called Dino’s? Who owns it?”
“I’m not sure. They’re probably Middle Eastern. Unfortunately.”
Yes, I had heard correctly. Now, I had two choices. One was to ignore the ugly anorexic bastard. The second was to come out and tell him I was Arab and that he was a fucking racist turd. The third was to do either 1 or 2 and also include a swift kick to his minuscule balls. I opted for 1.
Today, I was in Dino’s hood, so I decided to stop by. The place is straight out of 1976. The vinyl floors shine, the blackboards outline different donut and deli possibilities, and behind glass cases shines maple, raspberry, sugar-coated, cinnamon swirled, sexy donut goodness.
“Hey, girl. What you havin’?”
This guy was strong. His stubble was black and his eyes honey-shiny.
“I’ve been hearing about this place for a while.” From racists, but still.
“Yeah? Things about our bad attitude or our good food?”
“Both.”
“Good. That’s how we like it. What can I get you, girl?”
“A dozen donuts, assorted.”
“Smart girl.”
At this point his arms did this freakyfast dance move, whisking 14 donuts out of their cases and slotting them into perfect geometric shapes in a cardboard box.
“Where are you guys from?” I said.
His eyes glazed over; he’d been asked this question approximately seven thousand, two hundred and eighty-three times.
“I’ll give you one guess.”
“Well, I’m Palestinian, so I was kind of hoping…”
“You. Are. Naaaat.”
“I am.”
“You grew up here though?”
“No.”
“Well, you’ve been off the boat a long time then. How many years?”
I had to think about it.
“Eighteen.” Holy shit. Eighteen? He was right. A long time.
“I’ve been off for thirty seven years,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Randa.”
“I’m Waleed.” We shook hands. “My parents were born and raised in Jerusalem.”
I thanked him and he said I better come back.
I took a donut out of the box and sank my mouth into its raspberry filling. My cheeks covered in powdered sugar, I read the cardboard box: Dino’s Donuts and Deli, LLC.
The LLC killed me.
I drove home.

He taught me how to swim, and how to whistle.

He taught me how to put things together and how to take them apart.  His motto: Do things gently.

He was the most gentle man I’ve ever known.

He shot down Nazi planes.

He kicked out, with dozens of other men, King Farouk from Egypt.

When the foreigners left Alexandria and he was offered villas there, he refused, and rented his downtown apartment for almost fifty years,

He loved his children and his grandchildren and saw them every single day of his life.

We all loved being with him.

He read a stack of newspapers every day.

He prayed and ate white cheese.

He loved his country.

He went for daily walks in a fisherman’s cap.

He took his teeth out in the summer to scare us and make us laugh.

He had the gentlest laugh.

He was my grandfather.

He died in Alexandria earlier this morning, and is currently on his way to el-Sharqiya to be  buried.  I will miss his voice, his strength, and his wisdom.

He will always be in my thoughts, and he will emerge in every book I write. I am heartbroken.

I love you, Geddo.

I have been living under a rock lately, with my upcoming wedding and writing on my days off from teaching. I had not even learned that Murakami won the Jerusalem prize, or that he’d given an amazing speech. You can read the full text of it over at Salon. The quote above is beautiful and illuminates how a fiction writer can use old folk rhetoric and good storytelling to make a statement. I’m not sure if the statement is political, I only know it is humanistic and inspiring.