Khaled Mattawa Wins 2010 Academy Fellowship from Academy of American Poets

Although the news was released last week, I saw it just this morning, (thanks to Franklin Lewis).

So: مبروك ya Khaled!

Mattawa was born in Libya and immigrated to the U.S. in his teens. His poetry collections include: Ismailia Eclipse (1995), Zodiac of Echoes (2003), Amorisco (2008) and Tocqueville (2010). Mattawa is no stranger to prizes: He’s won a PEN for literary translation, a Guggenheim, the Alfred Hodder fellowship from Princeton, an NEA translation grant, and three Pushcarts.

So, well, if you haven’t already, I suggest you start delving into his work, perhaps here on Puerto del Sol.

The 2010 AAP Fellowship, a major U.S.  award, carries with it a stipend of $25,000. The winner is selected by the Academy’s Board of Chancellors, a body of fifteen eminent poets.

According to the AAP release:

Mattawa will be honored at the fourth annual Poets Forum, October 28-30, in New York City. [Mattawa and Galway Kinnell, winner of the Wallace Stevens award] will read from their work at the Poets Awards Ceremony and be part of intimate panel discussions on contemporary poetry presented by the Academy of American Poets.

And about Mattawa’s work, the release quotes Academy Chancellor Marilyn Hacker as saying:

Khaled Mattawa is one of the most original, lyrical and intellectually challenging American poets of his generation. Toqueville is a book that is as daring in its amalgam of poetic techniques as it is dazzling and pertinent in the breadth of its subject-matter, while Amoriscos expands possibilities of the lyric in English with its historical and cultural reach. He is also one of the best translators of contemporary poetry working today, from Arabic or indeed any language—creating viable, memorable poems in the receptor language.