The University of Arkansas Press is pleased to announce the 2024 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize has been awarded to Rawand Mustafa for her manuscript Umbilical Discord. The poet will receive a $1,000 cash prize, and her manuscript will be published as the eighth title in the Etel Adnan Poetry Series, which proudly supports the work of writers of Arab heritage.
“Overwhelmed is an understatement,” said Mustafa. “This prize is a testament to Etel Adnan’s colossal contributions to fostering a community of Arab artists, and to be a small part of that community is a blessing. I am honoured to have been recognized by and to work with Fady Joudah, Hayan Charara, and Trish Salah, and I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to amplify Palestinian voices through my writing.”
At its core Umbilical Discord is an impossible attempt. It stems from the desire to improbably trace the billion-branched reach of the Palestinian context within a rigid yet flowing form—columnar, helical, intertwining, tense, intense. Incorporating testimonies by elder Palestinian women who witnessed, survived, and still endure the effects of the Nakba or Palestinian Catastrophe of 1948, Umbilical Discord re-presents the contemporary shockwaves of this historical juncture by visually interlacing poetry and witnesses’ stories. Mustafa offers a poetic dimension to the narrative structures resulting from the overlapping stories collected and translated from Palestinian women, featuring an enlightening reflection, a life-changing anecdote, and a unique piece of the Palestinian puzzle. A weaving together of past and present, collective and individual, Arabic and English, memory and imagination, homeland and host country, this title is not quite about succeeding in the effort of tracing myriad threads in order to read the whole tapestry but rather about what is recovered from it—what can be discerned once the tapestry starts to take shape, even if it only amounts to a relatively better understanding of one’s place within its cords.
Rawand Mustafa is a Palestinian Syrian writer living in Canada. She received her MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor. Mustafa draws inspiration from social justice causes and is particularly impassioned by the struggles and resilience of Palestinians living in exile and under occupation.
The University of Arkansas Press accepts year-round submissions for the Etel Adnan Poetry Series and annually awards publication and the $1,000 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize to a first or second book of poetry, in English, by a writer of Arab heritage. Since its inception in 2015 the series has sought to celebrate and foster the writings and writers that make up the vibrant Arab American community, and the University of Arkansas Press has long been committed to publishing diverse kinds of poetry by a diversity of poets. The series editors are Hayan Charara and Fady Joudah, and the prize is named in honor of the world-renowned poet, novelist, essayist, and artist Etel Adnan. Publication is supported in part by the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas.