Diana Abu-Jaber

Diana Abu-Jaber is an American author and a professor. Quotes It’s hard to write too overtly about racism without coming across as heavy-handed or didactic. But if you’re too subtle, there’s the sense that you’re side-stepping the issue. Still, I’ve learned to write about hot button topics in more oblique ways, mostly by looking at people’s “innocent” assumptions about each other… On writing about racism in “‘America is not the Final Word:’ An Interview with Diana Abu-Jaber” in Solstice I never intended to write solely about Arab characters, or even primarily about them, but because they were such a big part of my first two novels and my memoir, people reckoned that was my main literary terrain. It wasn’t really a deliberate decision to move away from Arab characters in my later books, but more a desire to paint on a broader canvas, one that was closer to my day-to-day experience. On character writing in “‘America is not the Final Word:’ An Interview with Diana Abu-Jaber” in Solstice …I think that was really important growing up around story tellers like my dad and my uncles. I think it instilled a love of the beauty of the spoken story. Also, my mother was a reading teacher. She brought home a lot of fables and fairy tales, which also have an oral tradition behind them. It was a combination of those things that brought me the desire to tell stories, as opposed to a love of the beauty of writing. On how her family instilled a love of writing in “An Interview with Diana Abu-Jaber” in CutBank (Fall 2005) …I pretended I didn't understand Arabic when he spoke to me in public places. Because when I was a younger child, Arabic was a secret code in the family - I think that’s true for a lot of immigrant families. But then I didn't want to speak Arabic. I didn't want to be different from my friends at all… On formerly not wanting to connect with her father’s heritage in “An Interview with Diana Abu-Jaber” in CutBank (Fall 2005) External links Category:Jordanian Americans Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Educators from the United States Category:Living people Category:American Book Award winners Category:Women authors from the United States Category:Novelists from New York (state) Category:Autobiographers from the United States