Intimate Readings: George Abraham
George Abraham will be visiting the Netherlands, and we invited them for an intimate reading in our bookstore. Mark your calendar and join us on Sunday January 26 from 16:30-18:00 for an hour of poetry reading, and an hour of drinks and talks afterwards. Tickets are very limited, so secure yours quickly!
George Abraham (they/he/هو) is a Palestinian American poet, performance artist, and writer from Jacksonville, FL. Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Arab American Book Award and the Big Other Book Award in Poetry, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. He is also the author of the chapbooks al youm (The Atlas Review, 2017), and the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), a recipient of fellowships from The Arab American National Museum, The Boston Foundation, the National Performance Network, and the Map Fund, and more. Their writing has appeared in The Nation, The American Poetry Review, The Baffler, The Paris Review, Mizna, and many other journals and anthologies. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Litowitz MFA+MA program in Creative Writing, Abraham has taught at Emerson College and Harvard University. He is currently the Executive Editor of the Whiting Award-winning journal Mizna. Their collaborations include co-editing a Palestinian poetry anthology with Noor Hindi titled HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket Books, May 2025), and a performance art project titled EVE with Fargo Tbakhi. Their work has been translated into Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and more. They currently teach at Amherst College as a Writer-in-Residence.
Praise for Birthright: “Words cover the page like black rivers, poetry, and prose, odes to everything Palestinians have lost written in a multitude of poetic forms. Abraham gives genocide no respite, speaking directly to murder and rape committed against his people. This is also a queer work. The homophobia Abraham experiences is countered with sensitivity towards the reasons toxic masculinity has spread among his family and peers. To discuss the lyricism in these ambidextrous poems would be nowhere near as effective as encouraging you to read them. This is poetry against annihilation.” Elwin Cotman for Electric Lit
“Abraham’s debut collection exists as an exploration of queerness in all spaces, as a reclamation of ownership, as an annunciation of belonging, and as a coming-of-age acceptance of one’s self and past.” J. David for The Rumpus.