Joumana Haddad
Joumana Haddad (جمانة حداد) is a Lebanese poet, translator, journalist and women rights activist.
She’s been selected as one of the world’s 100 most powerful Arab women in March 2014 by CEO magazine Middle East (position 62), for her cultural and social activism.
She is head of the Cultural pages for "An Nahar" newspaper, and an instructor of creative writing at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She’s also the editor-in-chief of Jasad magazine, a controversial Arabic magazine specialized 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.
“Surviving war is an excellent training process. If it weren't so brutal, I 'd recommend it as an excellent start-up course in life. I feel that over years of endurance, hard work and perseverance of determination and conviction, of claiming our rights to stay alive, to be free and to be ourselves, of fighting the biggest wars as much as the smaller ones, our will can indeed move mountains for us.”