Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a Palestinian American poet, essayist, and translator. In July 2014, as Israel’s assault on Gaza unfolded, she wrote “Running Orders” — a poem spoken by a Gazan mother who receives the Israeli military’s phone call warning that her home is next. The poem spread across the world within days, was translated into several languages, and was later collected in her debut book, Water & Salt (2017), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award.

Her subsequent collections are Kaan and Her Sisters (2023) and Something About Living (2024), which won the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. A translator of Arabic poetry as well as a poet, she studied comparative literature at the University of Washington and earned her MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Redmond, Washington.

Selected works

• Water & Salt (2017)
• Kaan and Her Sisters (2023)
• Something About Living (2024)

Sources

• Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Poetry Foundation
• Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Academy of American Poets
• Water & Salt — Red Hen Press