Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Deema Shehabi (born 1970) is a Kuwaiti-born poet and writer. She has widely published in journals and wrote her first book of poetry in 2011. It was followed by an anthology which she co-edited in 2012 in response to the bombing of Baghdad's historic literary district and in 2014 a collaboration with another exiled poet of a collection of renga-style poems.
Shehabi was born in Kuwait in 1970. She is of Palestinian heritage; her mother was from Gaza and her father from Jerusalem. She attended The American School of Kuwait, with other Palestinian exiles. The Kuwait of her childhood was a haven for freedom, education, work and a place where she learned to be proud of her Palestinian culture. In 1988, she came to the United States to attend Tufts University and attained a BA in history and international relations. She earned a Master's in 1993 in journalism from Boston University.
She is the vice president of Radius of Arab-American Writers, Inc. (RAWI), which publishes the journal Mizna to promote contemporary Arab-American expression and has sponsored national events annually since 2009 to bring artists together.
She now lives in California and has two sons and a loving husband.
Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
: From
To