Zeyn Joukhadar

Instructor & Writer
Profile Photo

Zeyn Joukhadar is the author of the novels The Thirty Names of Night, winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Stonewall Book Award, and The Map of Salt and Stars, which won the Middle East Book Award and was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. His work has appeared in the Kink anthology, Salon, The Paris Review, and elsewhere, and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He guest edited Mizna's 2020 Queer + Trans Voices issue and is a member of the Radius of Arab American Writers as well as a mentor with the Periplus Collective.

Photo credit: Sara Deidda, 2020.

Classes

view 2 past classes  »

Stories

Cover Photo: Photograph courtesy of the author/stamp by Eliza Harris
What Lies Behind the Words: On Translating While Trans

For me, the real litmus test of fluency has always been: Can I use this language to convince a native speaker that I exist?

Sep 29, 2022
Cover Photo: Late afternoon on a terrace in Bergamo, Italy: two statues stand roughly six feet apart, silhouetted against a bright cloudless sky, photographed as if the viewer were intruding on a private moment
How to Say I Love You in Italian

With friends and family, one says “ti voglio bene”—literally “I want good for you.” And I believe love is not only something you feel, but something you do.

Feb 14, 2022
Cover Photo: A view of the River Tiber in Rome
Starting Testosterone During Ramadan Led Me to the Sacred in My Trans Self

Before testosterone, few people ever saw me cry. Now tears come in hot floods, as though some tender, unlanguaged creature has surfaced inside me.

Nov 24, 2021