Alexandra Chreiteh ألكسندرا شريتح is a Lebanese author known for her portrayal of the barriers faced by Arab women."Review: “The Missing Slate” Literary Magazine" . Neon Magazine, Christopher Frost
Life and work Chreiteh was born in Moscow, Russia, and was raised in a religiously conservative region in Lebanon by her Russian mother and Lebanese father. Chreiteh completed her bachelor's degree in English literature at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon. In Fall 2009, after being granted a graduate fellowship by Yale University, she commenced her PhD in Comparative Literature. While at Yale, Chreiteh completed her Master of Arts as well as a Master of Philosophy in comparative literature. She graduated with a PhD in 2016. Among other literature and film classes, Chreiteh taught creative writing at Yale's iconic Daily Themes course.
Chreiteh's creative work is originally in Arabic. Her work focuses on the intimate zones of conflict in post-war Lebanon. It breaks taboos as it deals with women and sexuality in environments that negotiate tradition and modernity. Her fresh narratives, the unique ironic-humorous style she voices, as well as her radical use of language, make her stand out in the literary landscape. Chreiteh has been a speaker in major literary festivals such as The Solothurn Festival of Literature in Solothurn, Switzerland (2012) and the Shubbak Festival of Arabic Literature, speaking on “Queerness and Queer Characters in Arabic Literature” in The British Library, London, United Kingdom (2017).
Chreiteh is based in Boston, where she is a Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor of Arabic and International Literary and Visual Studies at Tufts University. Her intellectual work on The Fantastic, Magical Realism, and Genre in Minority Literatures has appeared in various academic publications. She is fluent Arabic, Russian, English, French, Hebrew, and speaks some German. Chreiteh is working on her third novel.
Always Coca-Cola Chreiteh completed her first novel, Always Coca-Cola, while studying at the Lebanese American University, after drafting the story for an assignment in an Arabic creative writing class. The book's protagonist is Abeer Ward, a college-age woman who is concerned with protecting her purity and closely following Muslim traditions." What’s Going On In… Beirut, Lebanon". Nowhere Magazine, May 2014. by Sarah Coury Her close friend and model, Yana, is pregnant out of wedlock, and Abeer attempts to help her."Always Coca-Cola". New York Review of Books, Reviewed by: Michael Adelberg Yana's modeling career puts her into a soda ad that features her nearly naked body."Defining (a Lebanese) woman: Alexandra Chrieteh's 'Always Coca-Cola'". Egyptian Independent, 03/06/2012. M. Lynx Qualey Abeer witnesses and experiences many attacks on women's bodies which lead her to experience a coming-of-age moment."The agony and the allure". Quantara, Book review by Volker Kaminski, 17.08.2015 Translated from the German by Ron Walker
The manuscript, which drew offers from three publishers, was first released in May 2009 and English translation by Michelle Hartman followed in 2012."ALWAYS COCA-COLA". Kirkus Reviews, Issue: March 1st, 2012 It received favourable reviews for shedding an intimate light on the lives of Arab women. According to Chreiteh, she "wasn't trying to write something extraordinary - it's just the people you see every day".
Ali and His Russian Mother In 2010, Chreiteh published her second novel, Ali and His Russian Mother [ʻAlī wa-ummuhu al-Rūsīyah]. Like Always Coca-Cola, it was translated to English by Michelle Hartman who maintained Chreiteh's omission of chapters or subheadings in favour of a "continuous flow of words". The story takes place in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. The protagonist is a young homosexual Lebanese man who discovers that one of his ancestors was Jewish."Homosexuality and the Arabic novel". Your Middle East, Marcia Lynx Qualey, September 14, 2015
Bibliography
2009; Always Coca-Cola, a novel in Arabic. Arab Scientific Publishers: Beirut, Lebanon 2009; Ali and his Russian Mother [ʻAlī wa-ummuhu al-Rūsīyah], a novel in Arabic. Arab Scientific Publishers: Beirut, Lebanon 2012; Always Coca-Cola, Translated to English by Michelle Hartman. Interlink Publishers: Northampton, MA, USA 2015; Always Coca-Cola, Translated to German by Christine Batterman. Verlag Hans Schiler: Berlin, Germany 2015; Ali and his Russian Mother, a novel in Arabic. Translated to English by Michelle Hartman. Interlink Publishers: Northampton, MA, USA
Further reading
References
External links Alexandra Chreiteh's Linkedin