B.A. 1980 State University of New York, Oswego
M.A. 1982 University of Windsor
Ph.D. 1986 State University of New York, Binghamton
On the PSU faculty since 1996

FIELDS: Fiction Writing; Post-Colonial Literature; First Generation Writers; Film Studies

SPECIAL INTERESTS: Currently the Writer-in-Residence at the Department of English, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and was named one of the twenty best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor, and Arabian Jazz, which won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

She is also the author of a memoir, The Language of Baklava, and Origin (2007) the first in a new mystery series staring Lena, a highly gifted, intuitive fingerprint expert.

BOOKS
Arabian Jazz (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993)
Crescent (W. W. Norton & Company, April 2003)
The Language of Baklava (Pantheon Books, March 2005)
Origin (W. W. Norton & Company, 2007)

ARTICLES & ESSAYS
The Goddess of Flowers (Washington Post), 7/11/2004
This Thanksgiving, This Ramadan (Washington Post, 11/11/2002)
A World of Difference (Washington Post, 9/6/2002)
On Recognition and Nation (Washington Post, 9/30/2001)
$125 For My Thoughts? (Salon.com, 2/10/2000)