Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature
Founding President, Beast Fable Society
Founding Editor of Bestia and Paintbrush
Truman State University
Ben Bennani was born and raised in Lebanon and was educated in English and classical Arabic.
He is an honors graduate of Dartmouth College
and holds an M.F.A. in poetry writing (University of Massachusetts in Amherst),
a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (State University of New York in Binghamton),
and a graduate certificate in literary translation.
He has taught writing, translation, and literature at the University of Massachusetts,
University of Wyoming, Northeastern University, and Tufts University.
In 1982-83 Bennani was a Visiting Fellow in Arabic Studies at Harvard University;
in the fall of 1991 he was a Rockefeller Resident Fellow at Villa Serbelloni in Belagio,
Italy;
and in 1993-94 he was a Senior Fulbright Fellow in the United Arab Emirates.
Currently Bennani is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Truman State University
where he also edits Paintbrush: A Journal of Poetry and Translation,
and Bestia: Yearbook of the Beast Fable Society, of which he
is the founding president.
Bennani's poems, translations, and essays have appeared in literary
magazines in the United States,
England, Canada, and India. His translated work includes Splinters of Bone (1974),
Bread, Hashish, and Moon: Four
Modern Arab Poets (1982),
and Psalms: Poems by Mahmud
Darwish (1994).
Collections of his own poetry include A Bowl of Sorrow (1977),
Camel's Bite (1980),
and Primal Sympathy (forthcoming).
In 1987, Bennani founded the Beast Fable Society of America and its yearbook Bestia.
For more details on my professional work, visit my vita page.
