In an engaging conversation, Khaled Mattawa, CMENAS associate director and William Wilhartz Endowed Professor of English Language and Literature, reflected on his unexpected academic journey and deep passion for poetry. With decades of experience in translation, Arabic poetry, and mentoring students, he offered candid reflections on the experiences that have shaped his career.
Within academia, students are often asked, “What is your research adding to the existing literature?” More simply, students are asked, “What is the new thing that you are bringing to the table?” This question can be found at the center of their imposter syndrome. At its core though, this drives many with their work. There is often a gap, something that needs to be addressed, and this is something that Khaled Mattawa has built his career upon.
Born in Benghazi, Libya, Professor Mattawa is a poet who writes his own pieces and translates poetry from Arabic to English. He also critically reviews the literature and poetry of the Arab world, including Arab American literature. His work includes critical studies of poets such as Mahmoud Darwish, Tagore, and Derek Walcott through a comparative, post-colonial framework. Mattawa has been an academic for nearly 30 years now and has been at the University of Michigan for 21 of them.
“I began to write poetry because I felt very drawn to it as a means of artistic expression,” he explains, “Academically, my interest in writing, research, and even in translation, was just beginning to feel like there are some gaps, perhaps, that I could help fill. I began to translate poetry from Arabic because I felt a need to.”
He began to write more critically after translating and presenting one of Darwish’s poems during the Iraq War:
“There was an anti-war reading, and just instinctively felt that we can’t have an anti-war reading and not have a poem from the Arabic language itself represented.” This sparked Mattawa’s desire to speak for a moment and, subsequently, speak to the gaps in research he had found.
Now, as a full-time professor and academic, Mattawa has been actively working in the art scene in Libya, following the Revolution. “Libya, my country, opened up to me as a cultural space, a field of action,” he says. He and his wife started a nongovernmental organization (NGO) with several artists, and he served on the ground for 2.5 years, hosting festivals, exhibits, and a cinema club. In Tripoli in 2012, he hosted an international poetry festival, bringing poets from the United States, Europe, and other Arab countries. This stands out to him as one of his most remarkable international projects, along with what he describes as a residency with Doctors Without Borders where he volunteered on a migrant rescue ship in the summer of 2022. Boats took off from Libya, filled with migrants going to Europe, and he describes what he witnessed as the dangers that these migrants put themselves through to make it to better living conditions and better opportunities.
As for the University of Michigan itself, Mattawa found himself in Ann Arbor because he felt it would be a strong place for him to advance his work institutionally. He notes that the Arab American community in Dearborn played a small role in his choice to leave the south and head toward colder weather. In his role as CMENAS associate director, he speaks fondly of his experience with the colloquium, recalling it as wonderful:
“It’s truly wonderful to see the incoming graduate students and advanced undergraduates come together and engage with the program. Assisting in organizing the lecturers and presenters is equally rewarding, especially witnessing how engaged the students are with the subjects. I think the colloquium is a great opportunity to expose the students to the kinds of scholarship and creative endeavors that people are engaged in, in an immersive way.”
At the end of our interview, I asked Professor Mattawa what piece of advice he would give to his younger self. While he hesitated to give unsolicited advice to his younger self as he said young people tend to reject it, he did say he would encourage himself to read more. To read and to learn more. To keep finding gaps and keep filling them with knowledge for yourself and for others to come, to add more to what already exists out there. Mattawa built his career upon seeing what was missing and addressing it, and he works as our associate director to help graduate students do the same.
