When she accepted the National Book Award for poetry last month, Palestinian American writer Lena Khalaf Tuffaha called on her peers to speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Khalaf Tuffaha is one of six writers who will be in Minneapolis next week for “Palestine, Minneapolis and the Urgent Word,” a night of poetry and discussion exploring the role of writers in the U.S. as Israel’s war in Gaza continues and Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Monday’s event, cohosted by the arts organization Mizna, marks the first time that the Palestine Festival of Literature holds an event in the Twin Cities. 

“I would hope that it’s a space that can think about both Palestine on Palestine’s terms, but also draw connections to broader regional catastrophe and where we are right now,” said George Abraham, executive editor at Mizna.

Monday’s lineup features several writers with recently published books. Mosab Abu Toha, a poet and essayist from Gaza, published his second collection of poetry, “Forest of Noise,” in October. Khalaf Tuffaha won the National Book Award for “Something About Living.” 

Mizna also invited writers who contributed to the most recent edition of their biannual literary magazine, which came out in November and is titled “Catastrophe.” Palestinian American writer and journalist Sarah Aziza wrote for this last issue and will publish her first book, “The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders,” in April 2025. Minneapolis author Danez Smith also contributed to “Catastrophe.”

The event also features Nick Estes, member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and assistant professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota; Mizna board member and Minneapolis poet Sagirah Shahid; as well as Dina Omar, a lecturer at University of California-Berkeley and teacher of Palestinian poetry. 

“In the last year, a lot of us have been writing and organizing sort of in the virtual world, side by side,” said Sarah Aziza. “But we don’t always get to be side by side in person, so this will be really nice.”

Mizna and the Palestine Festival of Literature are among the few literary spaces where Palestinian writers can find community. 

“Largely there is a deafening silence among literary organizations, among editors and writers,” Khalaf Tuffaha said ahead of Monday’s event. “[There is] the need to write these bizarre introductions that contextualize what Palestinians have to say, as if we can never have Palestinians just speaking on their own terms and like their art can’t speak for itself; it’s almost like an apology to our Zionist readers.”

Mizna’s Abraham, who is also a poet, sees literary spaces as very isolating. 

“It’s hard because, I always think the community for Palestine exists much more in the movement spaces, than literary spaces,” they said, sharing feeling disheartened.”When it comes to actually, materially putting something on the line and getting an entity to divest from Israel, for example, people are just not willing to do that.”

For the last year, Aziza decided to distance herself from publications that justify Israel’s actions or that do not take a stance against it.

“During the genocide, I have no interest, really, in arguing my humanity and trying to convince people that we deserve to live or that we don’t deserve to be annihilated and bombed, indiscriminately,” said Aziza, who has roots in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza. 

When the war started, at first there was a sense of urgency: Aziza focused on nonfiction writing, calling people into action, hoping that unity could put an end to the destruction. She also wrote to humanize and memorialize those killed by Israel. Then, six months later, grief and disbelief took over. 

“I think with time going on, I’ve just been writing for my community,” she said. “That’s the most important because I don’t want to ever be put in a position where I have to translate or compromise.”

Since 2020, she has also been working on her first memoir, “The Hollow Half.” She worked on archives, oral history and research she has conducted for years to tell the story of three generations of a Palestinian family. In what she calls a piece of speculative nonfiction, she focuses on the bodily experience through time and history. 

Since the start of Israel’s aggression on Gaza, Khalaf Tuffaha has also focused on uplifting other Palestinian writers. She has curated a series of Palestinian writings in digital journals and is working on the translation of Palestinian poet Zakaria Mohammed’s work from Arabic to English.

“I have found this to be a devastating and stifling time, and so the way I solve that for myself is try to use anything I have to put the focus on Palestinian voices,” Khalaf Tuffaha said. 

“Something About Living” is Khalaf Tuffaha’s third book — and her most Palestinian American one she noted. The book, published in 2024, delves into life in America, through a Palestinian lens. 

“I realized that a lot of the poems are speaking to and back at, my experience of America and American power, and American culture from my vantage point, specifically as a Palestinian, and as a Palestinian American,” she said. 

Khalaf Tuhaffa was born in the United States, and grew up in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Her dad was born in Jerusalem. Her memories from her childhood and her family history inform her work.

“My own life is a life of limited or restricted access to my own homeland,” Khalaf Tuffaha said. “I’m interested in that homeland that I’m prevented from living in, I’m interested in what can be preserved and what can be recovered.”

READ MORE

Indigenous band Bizhiki brings electronic powwow music to The Cedar

‘A miraculous place’: ‘The Jungle’ brings refugee camp life to Minneapolis’ Mixed Blood Theatre

Bringing stories home: East African filmmakers screen new work at Minneapolis film festival