Bana Hilal and the Orange County Friends of the Levantine Cultural Center present Syrian American poet/novelist Mohja Kahf, who makes a rare Southern California appearance in support of the Levantine Cultural Center at the Woman's Club of Laguna Beach, on Tuesday, September 28, where she will read from, sign and discuss her books The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, and E-mails from Scheherazad. As the New York Times wrote, "Mohja Kahf, an Arab-American writer, draws sharp, funny, earthy portraits of the fault line separating Muslim women from their Western counterparts."

A portion of the proceeds benefits the LCC, a nonprofit that champions a greater understanding of the Middle East and North Africa by presenting artistic and educational programs that bridge political and religious divides.

Audiences laughing during performance by Mohja Kahf: (photo Carlos Valdivia)Born in Damascus, Syria, Mohja Kahf is an associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Arkansas. She has published three books: a novel, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, a volume of poetry, E-mails from Scheherazad, and Western Representations of the Muslim Woman. Her poems have been projected on the facade of the New York Public Library, and published in more conventional venues such as Mizna, Banipal, Paris Review, Tiferet: A Journal of Literature and Spirituality, and Atlanta Review.

Mohja Kahf reading at the center in Los Angeles: (photo Carlos Valdivia)Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond from W.W. Norton, and Hayan Charara's Inclined to Speak. Some of Kahf's short fiction was online at MuslimWakeUp.com's "Sex and the Ummah" column. An Arkansas resident for the last fourteen years, Kahf has lived in the Arab world and returns there regularly with her husband and three children. Kahf's next poetry manuscript is about Hajar, Sarah, and Abraham, and she is working on a book of essays on interfaith and faith issues, called Love, Anyway: Letters from Your Muslim Aunty. Read a New York Times profile about Mohja.

About The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

"The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf"Syrian immigrant Khadra Shamy is growing up in a devout, tightly knit Muslim family in 1970s Indiana, at the crossroads of bad polyester and Islamic dress codes. Along with her brother Eyad and her African-American friends, Hakim and Hanifa, she bikes the Indianapolis streets exploring the fault-lines between "Muslim" and "American."

When her picture-perfect marriage goes sour, Khadra flees to Syria and learns how to pray again. On returning to America she works in an eastern state - taking care to stay away from Indiana, where the murder of her friend Tayiba's sister by Klan violence years before still haunts her. But when her job sends her to cover a national Islamic conference in Indianapolis, she's back on familiar ground: Attending a concert by her brother's interfaith band The Clash of Civilizations, dodging questions from the "aunties" and "uncles," and running into the recently divorced Hakim everywhere.

Beautifully written and featuring an exuberant cast of characters, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf charts the spiritual and social landscape of Muslims in middle America, from five daily prayers to the Indy 500 car race. It is a riveting debut from an important new voice.