Hedy Habra (born Sabbagh) is of Lebanese origin. She was born and raised in Heliopolis, Egypt and has lived in both countries. She is a poet, artist and essayist. She received a B.S. in Pharmacy from the Faculté Française de Médecine et de Pharmacie of Beirut, S.J. . After spending several months in Athens, Greece and residing six years in Brussels, Belgium, she came to Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Habra earned an M.A. and an M.F.A. in English and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish Literature, all from Western Michigan University where she currently teaches. She has also taught for several years at Kalamazoo College. She received the WMU 2014 and the 2015-2016 Excellence in Teaching Award; the WMU 2013 Alumni Achievements Award, and is the recipient of the WMU All-University Research & Creative Scholar Award and a Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship Award.
Hedy Habra is the author of four poetry collections, most recently, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023); The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019), Winner of the 2020 Silver Nautilus Book Award, Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, Short-list Honoree for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prix in all genres, and Finalist for the Best Book Award. Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015) is inspired by visual art, and was a finalist for the 2015 USA Best Book Award and was short-listed among five finalists for the 2016 International Poetry Book Award. Her first collection, Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013), won the 2014 USA Best Book Award for Poetry and was among four finalists for the International Poetry Book Award.
Tea in Heliopolis won Honorable Mention in the C&R Press Open Competition Poetry Series and was a finalist in the Patricia Bibby First Book Award and the White Pine Press Award. It was a finalist four times in the Gival Press Poetry Contest and semi-finalist in more than fifteen poetry competitions, including twice for the Crab Orchard Review Open and twice for the Crab Orchard First Book Contest, Many Mountains Moving, White Pine Press, Violet Reed Hass Competition, Slope Press, The Washington Prize, C&R Press De Novo, Zone 3 and twice for the Brittingham and Pollak Prize.
Habra’s collection of short stories, Flying Carpets (Interlink 2013), won the 2013 Arab American National Book Award’s Honorable Mention for Fiction and was a finalist for the 2014 USA Best Book Award and the Eric Hoffer Book Award in Short Fiction.
Her book of literary criticism, Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa (Iberoamericana Vervuert 2012), focuses upon the visual and interartistic elements in the narrative of Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian 2010 Nobel Laureate. This book explores the function of the visual in conjunction with the concept of “small worlds” stemming from characters’ interiority and their ability to invent, dream, and construct possible worlds, which converts them into fictional authors and oftentimes virtual artists. Mundos alternos… underlines the cultural context of the erotic imagination and its role in artistic creation as well as in the development of individual thinking and the articulation of power struggles
Her critical essays on Vargas Llosa and numerous Spanish and Latin American authors have appeared in refereed journals such as Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Alba de América, Explicación de Textos Literarios, Confluencia, Hispanic Journal, Chasqui, Hispanófila, Afro-Hispanic Review, Latin American Literary Review, Antípodas and Inti, among others.
Her poetry and fiction in French, Spanish and English have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Alba de América, ArLijo, Annahar English Carpe Diem, The Aurorean, Axon: Creative Explorations, The Bitter Oleander, Black Tongue Review, Blue Fifth Review, Blue Lyra Review, Change Seven, The California Quartrly, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, The Cortland Review, Connotation Press, The Cordite Poetry Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Danse Macabre, Diode, Drunken Boat, Dublin Literary Review, Duende, The Ekphrastic Review, Explicación de Textos Literarios, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Gargoyle, Ghost Town, Hofstra, Indelible, Innisfree, Jabberwock, Journal Français d’Amérique, Knot Magazine, Letras Femeninas, Levure Littéraire, Life and Legends, Linden Lane Magazine, Live Encounters, The Mantle, Mayday, Mizna, Mockingheart Review, Mountain Gazette, Negative Capability, The New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Panoplyzine, Parting Gifts, Peacock Journal, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Poetic Diversity, Prairie Wolf Press, Puerto del Sol, Riggwelter, Rowayat, Rowayat Français, Rusted Radishes, Silent River Review, Solstice, The Smoking Poet, Spectrum, Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art, Tiferet, SETU, Sukoon, Third Wednesday Magazine, Valparaiso Review, Verse Daily, Vox Populi, and World Literature Today.
Habra is a twenty-one-time nominee for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology. She was recently recognized among 10 Remarkable Women in Arab American Prose. Her work was translated into Arabic, Chinese, and Turkish and won several awards, including the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Award, The Eve of St Agnes Award, Linden Lane Magazine Poetry Award, Pirene’s Fountain, Journal Français d’Amérique Poetry Prize, and Letras Femeninas’ Victoria Urbano Award for fiction and poetry. She won Honorable Mention for the Tiferet Journal Poetry Competition, was a finalist for Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Award, and was short-listed twice for the New Millenium Award.
Her poems appear in several anthologies, such as About Place: Dignity as Endangered Species, Aeolian Harp Folio Series Vol3; Alchemy: An Artist and Writer’s Initiative, Anima Methodi; Ars Moriendi: Writings On the Art of Dying; BARED: Les Femmes Folles; Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace, Collateral Damage;Come Together: Imagine Peace, The Dust of Memory Anthology, FULCRUM: An Anthology of Poetry and Aesthetics; Grit and Grace: A Woman Writing Anthology, Ekphrastic Writing, Immigration and Justice for our Neighbors Anthology; Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry; First Water: The Best of Pirene’s Fountain; SilverBirch Press; Mediterranean Poetry; New Millennium Writings; Rocked by the Waters:Poems of Motherhood, Seven Hundred Lines: A Crown of Found/Fount Sonnets, Shake the Tree Vol2; Sunrise from Blue Thunder: Pirene’s Fountain Japan Anthology; The Original Van Gogh Anthology, The Plague Paper Anthology, and Truth to Power: Writers Respond to the Rhetoric of Hate & Fear. Her poetry in Spanish and French is featured in Poetic Voices Without Borders Vol 2 and Rowayat, and her stories in Writing as Revision: The Family Chapter, Cup of Joe Anthology, Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction 2nd Ed, among others.
Hedy Habra has a passion for painting and languages. She is fluent in French, Arabic, English, Spanish and Italian. She has taken several courses in Italian, Greek, and Latin from WMU and for the past several years, she has been studying Mandarin Chinese and Chinese Ink Brush painting at WMU’s Confucius Institute as well as practicing Tai Chi.