Yahya Ashour will be reading poems about the war in Gaza, and will take questions from the audience afterwards.

ABOUT YAHYA ASHOUR

Yahya Ashour is an award-winning author and a touring poet. He was born in Gaza in 1998 and lived his whole life there, through multiple wars and the siege. Yahya is an author of a children’s book and a poetry collection in Arabic. He’s an honorary fellow in writing at the University of Iowa, his poetry was translated to 5 languages and his writings were published in several journals and anthologies around the world. He is going to be a resident at the international city of Arts in Paris in 2024. He read and spoke at several universities in the US including Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and University of Michigan. He has been in the US since September 2023, unable to go back home.

Yahya Ashour is a touring poet and an award-winning author.

• He was born in Gaza, Palestine, April 22, 1998.

• He published two books in Arabic:

– 2021, “That’s Why Ryan Walks This Way”, a children’s book.

– 2018, “You’re A Window, They’re Clouds”, a poetry collection.

• He’s going to be a resident at the International City of Arts in Paris, France, from March through May 2024.

• He’s an honorary fellow at the University of Iowa, U.S.A., and a 2022 fall resident of the International Writing Program held there.

• He read and spoke at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, University of Michigan, Wake Forest University, Michigan State University, University of Iowa, and other universities, churches, and organizations.

– He also gave lectures at some of these universities on Gaza and Palestine, Quran and Islam, and Arabic Literature, focusing on the sociological and psychological aspects of these topics.

• His children’s book won the Arab Children’s Books Publishers Forum award in 2022. The book was also shortlisted by the iBBY chapter in Palestine for the iBBY International Honor List 2022-2024.

– He also won several local writing contests.

• He was the youngest poet to be featured in the anthology of Palestinian Poetry Today which featured poets born between the 1970s and the 1990s, edited and translated by the renowned French-Morrocan poet Abdellatif Laabi.

• His writings were featured in several online and printed, local and international journals based in the U.S., the UK, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Finland, and anthologies published in Palestine, France, Italy, and Sweden.

• His writings were translated into 5 languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Finnish.

• He worked as a mentor for children and youth in creative writing and critical thinking at some of the most prominent organizations in Gaza, like Tamer, Qattan, Nawa, and Amideast.

• He earned a BA in Sociology/Psychology in 2020. He was also an exchange student in the US in 2014-15, through the KL-YES program.

• He survived 6 military aggressions on Gaza, in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022, and May of 2023, and lived through the siege on Gaza. He has been in the US since September 2023 on a B1 visa, unable to go back home.

• During the war, both his family’s house of 5 floors and his family’s business were destroyed, and he lost 1 cousin and 7 friends. His family of 19 (his mother, his siblings, and their spouses and children) was forced to flee to the south of Gaza and has been surviving under severe circumstances since the beginning of the war.