Mohja Kahf

Mohja Kahf (born 1967, Damascus, Syria) is an Arab-American poet and author.

Biography
Kahf moved to the United States in 1971. Her family has been involved in Syrian opposition politics, a theme reflected in the life of her character Khadra of The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf.

She received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Rutgers University and is currently an associate professor of comparative literature and faculty member of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Literary career
Kahf's work explores themes of cultural dissonance and overlap between Muslim-American and other communities, both religious and secular. Islam, morality, modesty, gender and gender-relations, sexuality, politics, and especially identity are important aspects of her work.

Her first book of poetry, E-mails From Scheherazad, was a finalist for the 2004 Paterson Poetry Prize.

Poetryic works

 * E-mails from Scheherazad. University Press of Florida, 2003.

Novels

 * The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf. Carroll & Graf, 2006.

Scholarly Monographs

 * Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque 1999 U of Texas Press

Articles and Book Chapters
"Writing on Muslim Gender Issues in the West Today: Slipping Past the Pity Committee," in Rabab Abdal Hadi, ed., Studies in Arab American Feminisms (forthcoming).
 * "From Her Royal Bod the Robe Was Removed: The Trauma of Forced Unveiling in the Middle East" in Jennifer Heat, ed., The Veil (UC Berkeley, 2008).
 * "Braiding the Stories: Women's Eloquence in the Early Islamic Era" in Gisela Webb, ed., Windows of Faith: Muslim Women's Scholarship and Activism (Syracuse UP, 2000).
 * "Packaging Huda: Sha'rawi's Memoirs in the US Reading Environment" in Amal Amireh & Lisa Suhair Majaj, ed., Going Global: The Transitional Reception of Third World Women Writers (Garland, 2000)
 * "Politics and Erotics in Nizar Kabbani's Poetry: From the Sultan's Wife to the Lady Friend" World Literature Today, Winter 2000.
 * "The Silences of Contemporary Syrian Literature" World Literature Today, Spring 2001.