IS THIS HOW YOU EAT A WATERMELON? | Busboys and Poets Books Presents
Date and Time
Feb 15, 2023 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Feb 15, 2023 6:00 pm
14th & V
IS THIS HOW YOU EAT WATERMELON? | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Zein El-Amine's new book invites readers into a world where love, war, and trauma collide with the desire to consume life—or be consumed by it. Here, a dozen boarding school students find themselves stranded at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. A young man, a young woman, and a mistreated monkey unite in a bid to survive. Even Israel’s war on Lebanon cannot stop an old woman from getting her fix of nicotine. A young Lebanese student on a visit to Bahrain is wrongly implicated as a terrorist and placed in a prison with other political prisoners where light and hope is absconding. Fresh snow compels a sacrilegious undertaking from a father much to the shock of his children. Shared trauma takes the shape of spectral phantoms. And in the titular story, a hedonistic man eats himself to an early death with the desecration of the city of Beirut forming the backdrop.
Proficient and empathetic, these seven short stories span war-torn Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United States to tell stories of transit and survival. With commitment to the vulnerability of the human experience and a fierce loyalty to characters bearing the trauma of war, Zein El-Amine’s collection is joyful and devastating, daring the reader to look away.
Zein El-Amine is joining on the Busboys stage for a book discussion, joined in conversation by Elliott Colla. This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of IS THIS HOW YOU EAT A WATERMELON? will be available for purchase before and during the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and will not be livestreamed.
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Zein El-Amine is a Lebanese-born poet and writer. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland. His poems have appeared in Wild River Review, Folio, Beltway Quarterly, Foreign Policy in Focus, CityLit, Graylit, Split This Rock, Penumbra, DC Poets Against the War: An Anthology, and Ghostfishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. His latest poetry manuscript A Travel Guide for the Exiled was recently shortlisted for the Bergman Prize, judged by Louise Glück. El-Amine was awarded El-Amine’s short stories have appeared in the Uno Mas, Jadaliyya, Middle East Report, Wild River Review, About Place Journal, and in Bound Off.
El-Amine lives in the Ella Jo Baker Intentional Community Cooperative and teaches Arab language and film at Georgetown University. He is also an adjunct professor, teaching Arabic literature and history at American University, and teaches Arabic Media and International Affairs at George Washington University. His weekly radio show, Shay Wah Nana airs on WPFW in Washington DC every Wednesday at 2 pm.
Elliott Colla teaches Arabic literature at Georgetown University. His first book, Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity, explores the colonial roots of modern Egyptology and the ways modern Egyptians have viewed the Pharaonic past. His current academic projects focus on protest cultures in contemporary Egypt.
Colla has translated novels, short stories, and poems by authors from Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, including Rabai al-Madhoun's story of the return to Gaza, The Lady from Tel Aviv. His 2014 novel, Baghdad Central, was adapted for television by Euston Films and Channel 4 and can be seen on Hulu, Starzplay, and other platforms. His graphic poem, We Are All Things, composed with Ganzeer, can be purchased from Radix Media.
