Jenny Lewis

Trevor Mostyn read Arabic with Persian at Edinburgh University in 1973. He later taught English Literature at Algiers University then travelled throughout the Middle East as a publisher with Macmillan and set up and ran the Med Media Programme (media projects between the then 12 EU countries and the 12 Mediterranean non-member countries) for the European Union which involved regular travel in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. He has published eight books on the region including The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East & North Africa and was deputy chair of English Pen’s Writers in Prison Committee. He teaches Islamic Studies at Oxford. His talk will focus on the EU Med Media programme he created and ran in Gaza, looking at films by Daoud Kuttab, Mai Masri, Omar al Qattan, Elie Sulaiman and others. His organisation supported training courses in Gaza, such as an Economist Intelligence Unit project,  and Trevor discussed the programme with Yasser Arafat, Hadar abd al Shafi, the psychiatrist Eyad al Sarraj, Hanan Ashrawi and many others in the region. 

Adnan Al-Sayegh was born in Al-Kufa, a city on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq in 1955 and is one of the most original voices of his generation of poets. His poetry denounces the devastation of wars and the horrors of dictatorship. Adnan has published twelve collections of poetry, including the 550-page Uruk’s Anthem (Beirut 1996) and the 1380-page The Dice Of The Text (Beirut, Baghdad 2022). He left his homeland in 1993, lived in Amman, and Beirut then took refuge in Sweden in 1996. Since 2004 he has been living in exile in London. His poems have been researched about by Masters and PhD students in multiple Iraqi, Arabic and international universities. He has received several international awards, and has been invited to read his poems in many festivals across the world. His poetry had been translated into many languages. His last book Let Me tell you What I Saw, Seren, 2020, edited, translated and with an introduction by Dr Jenny Lewis with others.

Ruba Abughaida was born in London and raised in Kuwait and Cyprus. She received her undergraduate degree in Canada followed by an Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing from Oxford University, an MSt. in Creative Writing from Cambridge University and an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS University. She is the recipient of the Writers and Artists Historical Fiction Award (2014) for her short story ‘The Sirocco Winds’ and the author of the poetry pamphlet ‘Paths and Passageways’ (Albion Beatnik Press, 2018).  She has translated work by critically acclaimed poets from the Arab world and the UK. Her work with Adnan Al-Sayegh and Jenny Lewis includes Let Me Tell You What I Saw, extracts from Adnan’s monumental anti-war poem, Uruk’s Anthem,(Seren, 2020); Jenny’s Even at the Edge of the World (Dar Sutour and Dar Al-Rafidain, 2018); Who Can Climb the Sky (2016), a theatre piece performed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Enheduanna Festival, Malmö, Sweden (2016/ 2017); Taking Mesopotamia by Jenny (Oxford Poets/Carcanet 2014); and Singing for Inanna, by Jenny and Adnan, (Mulfran Press, 2014).  Her latest Arabic collection of poetry: The Forgotten Queens, is forthcoming in April 2024 (Beesan Press).   https://rubaabughaida.com

Jenny Lewis is a poet, playwright, songwriter and translator who teaches poetry at Oxford University. She has had seven plays and poetry cycles performed at major UK theatres including the Leicester Haymarket, the Royal Festival Hall, the Polka Theatre, London and Pegasus Theatre. Her first book of poetry, When I Became an Amazon (Iron Press, 1996) was broadcast on BBC Woman’s Hour, translated into Russian, made into an opera and first performed by the Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Company in 2017. Jenny has published three further collections from Carcanet including Gilgamesh Retold (2018) which was a New Statesman Book of the Year and an LRB Bookshop Book of the Week. Jenny has also published three chapbooks from Mulfran Press and a collection of poetry (Let me tell you what I saw, Seren 2020) in English and Arabic with Adnan Al-Sayegh which are part of the award-winning, Arts Council-funded ‘Writing Mesopotamia’ project aimed at building bridges between English and Arabic-speaking communities.  song Anthem for Gilgamesh has had over 100 thousand hits on YouTube and Arab websites. http://jennylewis.org.uk