Kareem Abu-Zeid was born into an Egyptian American family,and has lived an itinerant life around the Middle East, the US, and Europe. He received his BA from Princeton University in 2003 in French and German Literature, and was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Germany as well as a CASA Fellow at the American University in Cairo.

He has taught language, literature and philosophy courses in Arabic, French, German, and English at UC Berkeley, the University of Heidelberg, and the University of Mannheim, and is currently doing a PhD on the intersections of modern Arabic poetry, mysticism and continental philosophy at UC Berkeley’s department of comparative literature. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Kareem Abu-Zeid has translated works by poets from Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. He was a runner-up for the 2010 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of Cities without Palms by Tarek Etayeb.

His translation of Eltayeb’s sequel to Cities Without Palms, The Palm House has recently been published by AUC Press (2012) and he is currently working on The Far-Off Call (AUC Press 2012) by Libyan novelist Ibrahim al-Koni.


Contributor's Issues

Banipal 45 - Writers from Palestine (2012)

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