{{short description|Palestinian American poet and physician (born 1971)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2026}} {{Infobox writer | name = Fady Joudah | image = Fady Joudah, poet, at the 2024 National Book Awards finalist reading 10 (cropped).jpg | image_size = 200 | caption = Joudah at the 2024 National Book Awards | birth_date = 1971 | birth_place = Austin, Texas, U.S. | occupation = {{hlist|Physician|poet|translator}} | alma_mater = {{plainlist| * University of Georgia * Medical College of Georgia * University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston }} | notableworks = {{plainlist| * ''The Earth in the Attic'' * ''[[... (poetry collection)|[...]]]'' }} | awards = {{plainlist| * Griffin Poetry Prize * Jackson Poetry Prize * Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize }} }}
'''Fady Joudah''' (born 1971) is a Palestinian American poet, translator, and physician. His debut collection, ''The Earth in the Attic'', won the 2007 Yale Series of Younger Poets series.<ref name="Chron2008" /><ref name="PoetryFoundation" /> He has translated poetry by Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Zaqtan; his translation of Zaqtan's ''Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me'' won the 2013 International Griffin Poetry Prize.<ref name="PoetryFoundation" /><ref name="Griffin2013" /> Joudah's collection ''[[... (poetry collection)|[...]]]'' was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry and won the 2025 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.<ref name="NBFJoudah" /><ref name="Lenore2025" />
==Life== Joudah was born in Austin, Texas, in 1971 to Palestinian refugee parents, and grew up in Libya and Saudi Arabia.<ref name="Chron2008" /><ref name="PoetryFoundation" /> He returned to the U.S. for college, attended the University of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia, and completed medical training at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.<ref name="Chron2008" /><ref name="PoetryFoundation" /> He is based in Houston, where he practices internal medicine.<ref name="PoetryFoundation" /><ref name="Lenore2025" /> He has also worked with Doctors Without Borders.<ref name="PoetryFoundation" />
Joudah translated ''The Butterfly's Burden'', a collection of recent poems by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.<ref name="Butterfly" /> The book won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation and was a finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.<ref name="PoetryFoundation" /> His translation of Darwish's ''If I Were Another'' was published in 2009 and won a PEN USA award in 2010.<ref name="PoetryFoundation" />
In 2012, Joudah published ''Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me: And Other Poems'', a collection of poems by Ghassan Zaqtan translated from Arabic, which won the 2013 International Griffin Poetry Prize.<ref name="PoetryFoundation" /><ref name="Griffin2013" /> In 2017, Joudah translated Zaqtan's ''The Silence That Remains''.<ref name="Silence" /> His poetry collections include ''Alight'' (2013), ''Textu'' (2014), ''Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance'' (2018), and ''Tethered to Stars'' (2021).<ref name="PoetryFoundation" /><ref name="Alight" /><ref name="Textu" /><ref name="Footnotes" /><ref name="Tethered" /> ''Cleveland Review of Books'' reviewed ''Tethered to Stars'' in 2021, writing that the collection "does not teach us how to answer any question it poses"; instead, "the poems model a lyrical thinking which prompts the question itself."<ref name="ClevelandReview2021" />
Joudah won the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize which carries an award of $100,000 from Poets & Writers.<ref name="APJackson" /> His collection ''[[... (poetry collection)|[...]]]'' was shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prize for Best Collection,<ref name="Forward2024" /> was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry,<ref name="NBFJoudah" /> and won the 2025 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.<ref name="Lenore2025" /> In the Lenore Marshall judges' citation, the collection was described as bearing "witness to genocide and expansive humanity".<ref name="Lenore2025" />
==Public appearances and writing on Gaza== Joudah appeared on ''Democracy Now!'' in 2008 after the death of Mahmoud Darwish.<ref name="DNDarwish2008"/> In 2021, ''PBS NewsHour'' profiled him in a segment on poetry and medicine.<ref name="PBS2021" />
During the Gaza war, Joudah published poems and essays about Gaza and Palestinian writing. In November 2023, ''Democracy Now!'' interviewed him in a segment about the deaths of more than 50 members of his family in Gaza and his criticism of U.S. media coverage of the war.<ref name="DemocracyNow2023" /> In a 2024 interview for ''The Yale Review'', Aria Aber wrote that Joudah had been publishing new poems and essays while appearing on television and radio to discuss the war, and described ''[[... (poetry collection)|[...]]]'' as a book that historicizes the fate of the Palestinian people and reckons with colonial violence. Joudah said most of the poems in the book were written between October and December 2023.<ref name="YaleReview2024" /> NPR's ''Code Switch'' later included Joudah in an episode on Palestinian American writers.<ref name="NPRCodeSwitch" />
==Works==
===Poetry collections=== * {{cite book |last=Joudah |first=Fady |title=The Earth in the Attic |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-300-13431-5 |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Joudah |first=Fady |title=Alight |publisher=Copper Canyon Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-55659-422-9 |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Joudah |first=Fady |title=Textu |publisher=Copper Canyon Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-55659-476-2 |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Joudah |first=Fady |title=Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance |publisher=Milkweed Editions |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-57131-501-4 |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Joudah |first=Fady |title=Tethered to Stars |publisher=Milkweed Editions |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-57131-534-2 |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Joudah |first=Fady |title=[[... (poetry collection)|[...]]] |publisher=Milkweed Editions |year=2024 |isbn=978-1-63955-128-6 |ref=none}}
===Translations=== * {{cite book |last=Darwish |first=Mahmoud |author-link=Mahmoud Darwish |title=The Butterfly's Burden |publisher=Copper Canyon Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-55659-241-6 |others=Translated by Fady Joudah |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Darwish |first=Mahmoud |author-link=Mahmoud Darwish |title=If I Were Another |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-374-17429-3 |others=Translated by Fady Joudah |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Zaqtan |first=Ghassan |author-link=Ghassan Zaqtan |title=Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me: And Other Poems |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-300-17316-1 |others=Translated by Fady Joudah |ref=none}} * {{cite book |last=Zaqtan |first=Ghassan |author-link=Ghassan Zaqtan |title=The Silence That Remains: Selected Poems |publisher=Copper Canyon Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-55659-514-1 |others=Translated by Fady Joudah |ref=none}}
===Other contributions=== * Contributor to ''A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue between East and West'' (Gingko Library, 2019) {{ISBN|9781909942288}}
==References== {{Reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="Chron2008">{{cite news |last=Lanham |first=Fritz |date=April 13, 2008 |title=Palestinian-American doctor turns suffering into song |url=https://www.chron.com/life/books/article/Palestinian-American-doctor-turns-suffering-into-1662410.php |work=Houston Chronicle |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="PoetryFoundation">{{cite web |title=Fady Joudah |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/fady-joudah |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Butterfly">{{cite web |title=The Butterfly's Burden by Mahmoud Darwish, trans. Fady Joudah |url=https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/the-butterflys-burden-by-mahmoud-darwish-tr-fady-joudah/ |website=Copper Canyon Press |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Griffin2013">{{cite web |title=Finalists & Winners |url=https://griffinpoetryprize.com/finalists/ |website=Griffin Poetry Prize |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Silence">{{cite web |title=The Silence That Remains: Selected Poems by Ghassan Zaqtan, Fady Joudah, trans. |url=https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/the-silence-that-remains-selected-poems-by-ghassan-zaqtan-tr-fady-joudah/ |website=Copper Canyon Press |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Alight">{{cite web |title=Alight by Fady Joudah |url=https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/alight-by-fady-joudah/ |website=Copper Canyon Press |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Textu">{{cite web |title=Textu by Fady Joudah |url=https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/textu-by-fady-joudah/ |website=Copper Canyon Press |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Footnotes">{{cite web |title=Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance |url=https://milkweed.org/book/footnotes-in-the-order-of-disappearance |website=Milkweed Editions |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Tethered">{{cite web |title=Tethered to Stars |url=https://milkweed.org/book/tethered-to-stars |website=Milkweed Editions |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="ClevelandReview2021">{{cite web |last=Wessels |first=Christian |date=August 5, 2021 |title=In the Cosmic Theater: On Fady Joudah's ''Tethered to Stars'' |url=https://clereviewofbooks.com/fady-joudah-tethered-to-stars-review/ |website=Cleveland Review of Books |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="APJackson">{{cite news |date=April 18, 2024 |title=Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah receives $100,000 prize |url=https://apnews.com/article/fady-joudah-palestinianamerican-poet-jackson-prize-2019fec5fcc838963be3f3062b5e7b92 |work=Associated Press |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Forward2024">{{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Porter |date=July 17, 2024 |title=UK: Shortlists Named for the 2024 Forward Prizes for Poetry |url=https://publishingperspectives.com/2024/07/uk-shortlists-named-for-the-2024-forward-prizes-for-poetry/ |website=Publishing Perspectives |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="NBFJoudah">{{cite web |title=Fady Joudah |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/people/fady-joudah/ |website=National Book Foundation |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="Lenore2025">{{cite web |date=October 16, 2025 |title=The Academy of American Poets Announces the 2025 Winners of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and the James Laughlin Award |url=https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-announces-2025-winners-lenore-marshall-poetry-prize-and-james-laughlin-award |website=Academy of American Poets |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="DNDarwish2008">{{cite web |date=August 11, 2008 |title=Mahmoud Darwish, Poet Laureate of the Palestinians, 1941–2008 |url=https://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/11/mahmoud_darwish_poet_laureate_of_the |website=Democracy Now! |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="PBS2021">{{cite web |date=March 22, 2021 |title=How one doctor's love for poetry helps him speak to patients |url=https://www.pbs.org/video/poetry-medicine-1616446698/ |website=PBS NewsHour |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="DemocracyNow2023">{{cite web |date=November 9, 2023 |title='Unspeakable': Dr. Fady Joudah Grieves 50+ Family Members Killed in Gaza & Slams U.S. Media Coverage |url=https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/9/fady_joudah_family_killed_by_israel |website=Democracy Now! |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="YaleReview2024">{{cite web |last=Aber |first=Aria |date=February 28, 2024 |title=Fady Joudah |url=https://yalereview.org/article/fady-joudah-interview |website=The Yale Review |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="NPRCodeSwitch">{{cite news |last1=Dirks |first1=Sandhya |last2=Demby |first2=Gene |last3=Mortada |first3=Dalia |last4=Donnella |first4=Leah |date=October 9, 2024 |title=Two Palestinian writers on the right to share their stories |url=https://www.wrvo.org/2024-10-09/two-palestinian-writers-on-the-right-to-share-their-stories |work=WRVO |agency=NPR |access-date=April 29, 2026}}</ref>
}}
==External links== {{Commonscatinline}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joudah, Fady}} Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century Palestinian poets Category:21st-century American male writers Category:21st-century American poets Category:21st-century Palestinian poets Category:21st-century translators Category:American internists Category:American male poets Category:American people of Palestinian descent Category:Translators of Mahmoud Darwish Category:Writers from Austin, Texas Category:Yale Younger Poets winners Category:University of Georgia alumni Category:Medical College of Georgia alumni Category:University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston alumni Category:21st-century American translators Category:Arabic–English translators