Atrium

Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist, whose work has been universally praised worldwide. Her poetry collection ATRIUM (2013, Three Rooms Press) was awarded the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry, while her collection, HIJRA, was selected as a winner of the 2015 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and published by Southern Illinois University Press. Her debut novel, SALT HOUSES (2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was awarded the 2018 Dayton Literary Peace Price for fiction, the 2018 Arab-American Book Award for Fiction, and "Best Book of the Year" by NPR, NYLON, and Kirkus Reviews. She is a Lannan fellow and currently resides in Brooklyn.

Winner, 2013 Arab-American Book Award for Poetry“Don't miss the dazzling Hala Alyan. Wow. When she says ‘the poetry like a spear,’ she isn't kidding.” —Naomi Shihab Nye, poet, Transfer“Hala Alyan’s poems startle us with their beautiful, enigmatic images and capture us with their passionate engagement with the world. A powerful debut.” —Chitra Divakaruni, author, Mistress of Spices “For all the stunning angularity in this vision, we do not doubt that what we are seeing and sensing here is a surprising, sharp-edged sense of the real, of a world that had been there all along, just waiting for this poet and these poems to reveal. Start to finish, these poems convey a singular vision and represent an important new voice in the international poetry arena.” —Fred Marchant, poet, Tipping Point“Atrium is a formidable volume: irreverent, clever, hyper-erudite and laugh-out-loud funny, with moments of arresting darkness and disturbing intensity to boot. Whether it’s Greek mythology, nightclub culture, obscene sex acts or Beirut, there is scarcely one subject in these 88 pages to which Alyan doesn’t bring fierce originality, feeling and flair.” —New Lebanon Review