Samiha Khrais


Samiha Khrais, alternative spelling Samihah Kharis is a Jordanian novelist, journalist and translator. She was born in Amman and completed her primary and secondary school education in Qatar and Sudan and her university education in Egypt. For around 20 years, Khrais held a number of positions in the field of journalism, including editor-in-chief for Jordanian Hatem magazine and writer for Al-Ittihad newspaper, among others. She served as board member of the Radio and Television Department and PEN International in Jordan, and one of the founders of Emirates Writers Union. She has published over 15 literary works, and was nominated for a number of literary prizes, most notably, the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in 2017.

Education

Khrais completed her primary education and part of her secondary education in Qatar. Due to the nature of her father's diplomatic post, Khrais resumed her secondary education in Sudan, and graduated in 1973 from the literary branch of the secondary school for girls in Khartoum. In 1978, she obtained her bachelor's degree in Sociology from Cairo University in Egypt. She writes in her native Arabic and in English.

Career

Khrais first started working in the field of journalism and wrote for some of the well-known Arabic newspapers, including Al-Ittihad, an Emirati newspaper from 1981 to 1998, for Al-Dustour daily Egyptian newspaper in 1998, and Al Ra'i Jordanian newspaper. A year later, she was appointed director of the Cultural Department of Al Ra'i newspaper and editor-in-chief of Hatem, a children's magazine issued by the same newspaper. In 2009, she served as board member of the Radio and Television Department of the Jordan News Agency Petra. In addition, she was a member of cultural associations, including the Jordanian Writers Association, Jordan Press Association and PEN International. Khrais is also one of the founding members of the Emirates Writers Union.
Khrais has published more than 15 novels and several short stories, written television and radio scripts and translated a selection of Jordanian short stories into English. Her literary works gained wide recognition; some of them were translated into other languages, such as The Notebook of Floods into German and Spanish, and The Plate into German. Other literary contributions were featured in Jordanian and other Arabic newspapers. In the years 2002 and 2003, her novels, The Tree of Leopards, Poppy and The Notebook of Floods, were broadcast by Jordan Radio and Television Corporation as a radio show. Another novel titled Crimea was aired as a television show under the name The Night and the Dessert. Khrais was awarded at the Cairo Festival for Radio and Television for several years for several of her novels, including The Tree of Leopards, Poppy and Crimea. In 2002, literary magazine Banipal featured contemporary Jordanian writers, including the translation of two chapters from Khrais's novel ''The Poppy.''

Works

Novels

My Journey, Dar Al-Haitham, Beirut, 1980.The Tide, Dar Al-Shorouk, Amman, 1990.The Tree of Leopards: The Sharing of Life, Dar Al-Karmel For Publishing & Distribution, Amman, 1995.The Tree of Leopards: The Sharing of Passion, Sharqiyat Publishing House, Cairo, 1997.Crimea, Greater Amman Municipality publications, Amman, 1998.Poppy, The Centre for Arab Unity, Beirut, 2000.The Notebook of Floods, Greater Amman Municipality publications, Amman, 2003, and Al-Dar Al-Masriah Al-Lubnaniah, Cairo 2004.The Plate, Dar Azminah For Publishing & Distribution, Amman, 2003.Nara: The Paper Empire, Dar Nara for Publishing & Distribution Amman, 2007Dancing with the Devil, Dar Nara for Publishing & Distribution, Amman, 2008.Us, Dar Nara for Publishing & Distribution, Amman, 2009.Yahya, Dar Thaqafaat, Beirut, 2010, and Arab Scientific Publishers House, Beirut, 2010.On a Bird’s Wing, Dar Al-Hiwar, Latakia, 2011.Slaves’ Peanuts, 2016.The Tree Stump: An Arabic Historical Novel. East Lansing. Michigan State University Press. 2019.

Short story collections

With the Land, Dar Al-Ayyam, Khartoum, 1978.Orchestra, Dar Al-Kindi, Irbid, 1996.

Critical reception

Arab literary critics have praised Khrais's novels for their psychological rendering of Arab women's lives. The Algerian critic Rachid Ben Malek called her novels "a leap in Modern Arabic literature", referring to her choice of semantic elements and methodological approaches in composing her writings. An essay in the International Journal of Postcolonial Studies about the novel Slaves' Peanuts, dealing with the slave trade in Sudan, stated:
In an article about Arab Women's writings in ArabLit magazine, Syrian writer Shahla Ujayli said that Khrais's novel Babnous "demonstrates her power of artistic narrative and courage in representing narrative cultures of marginalized ethnic groups in Sudan."
US-based World Literature Today magazine attributed to her novel The Tree Stump and its literary rendering of the 1916 Arab Revolt against the Turkish Empire " the wish to provide an alternative account to T. E. Lawrence| Lawrence’s, one rooted in the experiences of Arabs", based on information obtained during Khrais’s meetings with tribal elders that “challenged the narrative that Lawrence and most Western historians provided.”
In his M.A. thesis at DePaul University, Chicago, Zachary Oesterreicher called Khrais's writing a form of "resistance against oppression and of advancement of social justice of Arabs, and Arab women in particular, via the act of storytelling."

Awards