Joumana Hadad
Introduction
Joumana Hadad is a Lebanese poet, translator as well as a journalist and a women’s rights activist. She has also been selected as world’s 100 most powerful Arab women in March 2014 Middle East (position 62) for her cultural and social activism.
She is the head of the Cultural pages for ‘An Nahar’ newspaper, and an instructor of Creative Writing at the Lebanese American University in Belrut. She is also the Editor-in-chief of Jasad magazine, which is a controversial Arabic magazine which specializes in the literature and arts of the body.
She has already published several essays and poetry collections, widely acclaimed by critics. Her books have been translated to many languages and published abroad.
Speaking seven languages, Haddad is a polyglot and has written books in different languages, and has also published several works of translation, including an anthology of Lebanese modern poetry in Spanish, published in Spain as well as in many Latin American countries, and an anthology of 150 poets who committed suicide in the 20th century.
She interviewed many international writers, such as Umberto Eco, Paul Auster, Jose Saramago, Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek, and others.
Joumana Haddad has been awarded the Arab Press Prize in 2006.
In October 2009, she has been chosen as one of the 39 most interesting Arab writers under 39.
In November 2009, she won the International Prize North South for poetry, of the Pescarabruzzo Foundation in Italy.The winner of the novel prize was Austrian writer Peter Handke.
In February 2010, she won the Blue Metropolis Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize.
In August 2010, she received the Rodolfo Gentili Prize in Porto Recanati, Italy.
In November 2012, she received the Cutuli Prize for journalism in Catania, Italy.
In July 2013, she was appointed honorary ambassador for culture and human rights for the city of Naples in the Mediterranean by the mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris.
In February 2014, she was awarded the “Career Poetry Prize” by the Archicultura Foundation in Acquiterme, Italy.
Haddad’s magazine is the feature of a 2013 film by Amanda Homsi-Ottosson, Jasad & The Queen of Contradictions, a Women Make Movies release
Best known abroad for her book “Superman is an Arab”, a violent protest against the patriarchal system in place in the region, Joumana stands strong for the values she believes in: “I have always been committed to justice against indifference. I think that as Humanists our commitment encourages a person to reconnect with our sense of Humanity. So it’s only natural that each one of us does something meaningful to improve his life and that of others. The accumulation of small successes often induce big changes.”
Her refusal to be “ a woman treated with condescendence, an accessory, or a piece of meat that should match the expectations of others” has led her to write and denounce the system very clearly; receiving strong support as well as sometimes harsh criticism that she dismisses easily : “I’m able to make my own decisions and take my own responsibilities. In a patriarchal society, composed of men but also of women, the system is unfair to women. But this conditioning is counterproductive and we should manage to raise human beings without these labels which do not define us.”
