ena Khalaf Tuffaha was born in Seattle but grew up in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and her poetry reflects on her Palestinian, Jordanian and Syrian heritage and on her experience as a first-generation American immigrant. In Something About Living (the87press), winner of the National Book Award in 2024, her poems interweave the history of Palestinian suffering and resistance with the challenges of living in a world full of violence and the gentle pleasures we embrace in order to survive that violence. Tuffaha will be reading from her work, and discussing it with writer, bookseller and film curator So Mayer, whose most recent book is Bad Language.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.