Event details

The Program in Creative Writing presents a poetry reading by Iraqi American poet and writer Dunya Mikhail, the 2026-2027 Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes Visiting Poet at Princeton University, a National Book Award finalist, and a past Guggenheim Fellow.

About Dunya Mikhail

Poet Dunya Mikhail. Photo courtesy Dunya Mikhail

Mikhail is the author of the poetry collections The War Works Hard, shortlisted for the International Griffin Poetry Prize; Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea, which won the Arab American Book Award; The Iraqi Nights, winner of the Poetry Magazine Translation Award; In Her Feminine Sign, which was chosen as one of the ten best poetry books of 2019 by The New York Public Library; and Tablets: Secrets of the Clay, a section of which was adopted by UNESCO as a sticker. Her nonfiction book The Beekeeper was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her debut novel, The Bird Tattoo, was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Described by The Christian Science Monitor as “one of the foremost poets of our time,” Mikhail is a laureate of the UNESCO Sharja Prize for Arab Culture and a recipient of the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. She has also received fellowships from United States Artists, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation. Mikihail’s work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Poetry, among others.

Admission

The reading event is free and open to the public; no tickets or registration required.

Directions

Get directions to Labyrinth Books, located at 122 Nassau Street in Princeton.

Accessibility

Labyrinth Bookstore is an accessible venue. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event dat