Our People Shall Live: Mizna Gathers Lena Khalaf Tuffaha & Mosab Abu Toha in Conversation

Saturday, March 29 10:35-11:50 a.m. PT

Petree Hall C, Los Angeles Convention Center, Level 1

As we mourn Gaza’s destruction by the recent campaign of Zionist genocide and watch a tenuous ceasefire evolve under an appalling new threat of American imperialism, we seek voices from Palestine to render, deconstruct, and reimagine these realities and our relationships to them. Toward that, Mizna is thrilled to host a critical conversation and reading with two major Palestinian poets: National Book Award winner Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and acclaimed Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha. The two will share work responding to the ongoing catastrophe and engage in dialogue about Palestinian sumud, literature’s role in resisting genocide, and our collective futures in and beyond the world of poetry.

 
Panelist Bios:

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha  is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry; Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press, 2023), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and Water & Salt (Red Hen, 2017), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for the 2018 Arab American Award. Tuffaha is also the author of two chapbooks, Arab in Newsland (Two Sylvias Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and Letters from the Interior (Diode, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize..

 

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, short story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker.