Amira Hanafi (born 1979) is an American-born poet and artist who has published several works of

electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or Generative literature, algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature ar ...

. She holds both American and Egyptian citizenship. '' A Dictionary of the Revolution'', a creative work she completed in 2017, documents the 2011 Egyptian uprising. It was the winner of the 2018 New Media Writing Prize and Denmark's 2019 Public Library Prize for Electronic Literature. Her electronic literature works are replayed and explored on Femmes Literature Electronique (French 2024).

Biography

Born in

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

in 1979, Amira Hanafi has been based in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

since 2010. Her involvement in poetry, culture and art is focused on her interest in working with language.

Works

''Minced English'' (2010) is a collage based on associations with 29 terms for people of mixed race. The pages present sentences evoking the colour and violence of all the relationships which turn up, revealing how a dominant culture lay behind the language. Similarly, ''Forgery'' (2011), drawing on language linked to the keyword "Finkl", centers on Chicago's 130-year-old steel forge founded by the German immigrant Anton Finkl of A. Finkl & Sons Steel. Published in 2020 in both English and Arabic, '' A Dictionary of the Revolution'' is designed to reveal details of the 2011 uprising based on meetings with 200 people from six Egyptian regions. Hanafi asked them to choose one of 160 words related to the revolution and express their reactions. Their responses were woven into a network of multi-voiced storytelling of the event. In 2018, the work won the New Media Writing Prize in a collaboration between

Bournemouth University Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The universi ...

and if:book uk. In May 2019, it was awarded the Danish Public Library Prize for Electronic Literature. This work is featured in

The NEXT Museum The NEXT: Museum, Library, and Preservation Space is a repository of net art, electronic literature and games. It is supported by Washington State University at Vancouver and the Electronic Literature Organization. This is a digital museum dedic ...

's exhibition Vision UnBound 2024. ''The CreaTures Glossary'' is "a set of tools for giving meaning to a lexicon of terms related to creative practice and transformational change." A distinctive compilation that transcends traditional boundaries in creative discourse, the project asks you to redefine ordinary terms and provoke thought on the meaning of the words in a new context. Commissioned by the CreaTures Project (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures) in 2021. ''CreaTures Glossary'' was partned with a collaboration of Universities to grant funding to the project including: Alto University, the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

’s Sustainability Research programme, and

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

. ''CreaTures Glossary'' adds new meaning to old words by asking readers to engage in various thought exercises. Using language, the project makes readers take a closer look at everyday life. This closer look makes readers more sensitive to the things happening around them such as social interactions and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

References

External links

Amira Hanafi's websiteVideo of Amira Hanafi reacting to her award
*https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/the-creatures-research-project-highlights-how-creative-practices-can-contribute-to-the {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanafi, Amerira 1979 births Artists from Vermont 20th-century American artists 20th-century American women artists 20th-century Egyptian artists 20th-century Egyptian women artists 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers American women poets Egyptian women poets 20th-century Egyptian writers 20th-century Egyptian women writers Living people American electronic literature writers Egyptian electronic literature writers