Nationality Palestinian Employer University of Florida Name Aida Bamia | Alma mater University of London Citizenship United States | |
Known for Scholarship in Arab literature and Arab to English translations. Books The Graying of the Raven: Cultural and Sociopolitical Significance of Algerian Folk Poetry | ||
Aida Adib Bamia is professor emeritus of Arabic language and literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She is a specialist in North African literature. Her work on Arabic literature has helped to bring quality translations to English readers.
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Biography
Bamia is Palestinian, and was born in Jerusalem. In 1948, her family moved to Egypt. She received her Ph.D in 1971 from the University of London. From 1972-1973, Bamia received a Ford Foundation grant to work on a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In 1985, she began teaching at the University of Florida. Prior to being hired in Florida, Bamia taught at various universities in Algeria. Later, Bamia pursued and received American citizenship and she considers herself an Arab American.
Bamia's research has focused especially on Muslim women writers from the Middle East. She has found that women have contributed to culture and literature, even in early Islamic times and she hopes to combat stereotypes about these women through her writing and research. She has also focused her research efforts on the oral poetry traditions of Maghribi women of North Africa.
She was the editor of Al-Arabiyya, the journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic (AATA). She was also a president of AATA in 1993.
She is the author of The Graying of the Raven: Cultural and Sociopolitical Significance of Algerian Folk Poetry (AUC Press 2001). The Graying of the Raven won the Middle East Award from the American University in Cairo Press in 2000.
Her translation work has been nominated for awards. In 2014, she was nominated for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her translation of The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari.
Currently, she is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan.