Nathalie Handal

Nathalie Handal is described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” She has lived in four continents, is the author of 10 award winning books, translated into over 15 languages, including Life in a Country Album, winner of the Palestine Book Award; the flash collection The Republics, lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers,” and winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award. Handal is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Fondazione di Venezia, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, Africa Institute, and is the winner of the Alejo Zuloaga Order in Literature, among others. She is Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at New York University-AD, and writes the literary travel column, “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders.

Awam Amkpa: And So On

By May 19, 2025
In a sequel interview, the Nigerian director Awam Amkpa speaks about the missing scenes in his award-winning film, The Man Died, inspired by Wole Soyinka’s 1971 “prison notes.”

Haiti

By January 13, 2012
In the first piece in our Writers Bloc project, our collection of essays about education systems around the world, writer Nathalie Handal visits Haiti a year after its devastating earthquake.