Randa Jarrar

Biography

Randa Jarrar was born in 1978 in Chicago to an Egyptian & Greek mother and a Palestinian father. She grew up in Kuwait and Egypt. After the Gulf War in 1991, her family moved back to the US, living in the New York area when she was 13. Jarrar studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College, received MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. She has taught College Writing, Creative Writing, and Arab-American literature.

Jarrar spends her days teaching creative writing to both graduates and undergraduates. "It's a majority minority school," she describes. "Many of my undergraduates are brown: Latinos, Asian Americans, Muslim Americans. They're first generation college students. Or they're children of migrant workers. Or they work full time, and parent."

Literary work

Criticism

Jarrar wrote an opinion piece called, Why I Can't Stand White Belly-Dancers which was published in Salon, 2014. In this piece, Jarrar said she felt that white women who take part in the art of bellydance are engaging in cultural appropriation and "brown face." Many bellydancers and nonbellydancers alike were outraged by her statement, including UCLA professor Eugene Volokh. Novelist and comics writer G. Willow Wilson wrote in defense of Jarrar, "When you shimmy around a stage in a hip band and call yourself Aliya Selim and receive praise and encouragement, while the real Aliya Selims are shortening their names to Ally and wondering if their accent is too strong to land that job interview, if the boss will look askance at their headscarf, if the kids at school are going to make fun of their children, guess what: you are exercising considerable privilege." Jarrar wrote a follow-up to her piece, titled "I Still Can't Stand White Bellydancers."

Awards