Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Arabic: سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; 16 April 1925[1] – 20 April 2023) was a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She was the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provide translation of Arabic literature into English.
Salma Khadra Jayyusi
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سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي
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Salma Jayyusi
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| Born | 16 April 1925
Safed, Palestine
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| Died | 20 April 2023 (age 98)
Amman, Jordan
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| Known for | poet, writer, translator and anthologist |
| Parent | Subhi al-Khadra (father) |
Jayyusi was born in Safed[2] to a Palestinian father, the Arab nationalist Subhi al-Khadra, and a Lebanese mother. Attending secondary school in Jerusalem, she studied Arabic and English literature at the American University of Beirut. She married a Jordanian diplomat, with whom she travelled and raised three children.[3]
In 1960, she published her first poetry collection, Return from the Dreamy Fountain. In 1970, she received her PhD on Arabic literature from the University of London. The title of her dissertation was "Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry".[4]
She taught at the University of Khartoum from 1970 to 1973 and at the universities of Algiers and Constantine from 1973 to 1975. In 1973, she was invited by the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to go on a lecture tour of Canada and the US, on a Ford Foundation Fellowship. In 1975, the University of Utah invited her to return as a visiting professor of Arabic literature, and from then on, she was based at various universities in the United States.[3]
To encourage the wider dissemination of Arabic literature and culture, Jayyusi founded the Project of Translation from Arabic in 1980, and later founded East-West Nexus, a project for making Arabic scholarly works available in English.[5]
Jayyusi died on 20 April 2023, four days after her 98th birthday, in Jordan.[1]