Biography

Adele Ne Jame’s poetry is informed by her Lebanese heritage and more than four decades of living in the environmental majesty of Hawaii. Thoughtful and atmospheric, her writing is described by fellow poet Naomi Shihab Nye, as springing from 'jagged landscapes linking hearts and cultures, the rich mix of Middle Eastern heritage transposed to Hawaii.' For the Biennial opening, NeJame gave a reading in the exhibition space.

NeJame’s first book of poetry, Inheritance, was published by Ridgeway Press in 1989 while she was artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1990 she received a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. Fieldwork, her second book, was published in 1996 by Petronium Press in Honolulu. Her work has also appeared in American Nature Writing, anthologies published by the Sierra Club, Nimrod an International Journal of Poetry and Prose, The Georgetown Review, Ploughshares and The Denver Quarterly. She writes for anthologies and journals that focus on Arab-American writers and poets and recent work can be found in Inclined to Speak, an Anthology of Contemporary Arab-American Poetry published by the University of Arkansas Press (2008).

Adele NeJame completed her graduate degree at the University of Hawaii, Manoa in 1987 and currently teaches literature and poetry at Hawaii Pacific University. NeJame was born in New Jersey and has lived in Hawaii since 1969.

October 2010

This person was part of Sharjah Biennial 9

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