Hind Shoufani

Hind Shoufani (Arabic:هند شوفاني) is a poet, director, and producer.

Career Born 1978 in Lebanon and raised in Damascus and Amman, Shoufani has remained a refugee. She currently resides in the Middle East, but has traveled and lived in many cities. Both of her parents are Palestinian activists. Her father, Elias Shoufani, went to Princeton and served as a Palestine Liberation Organization leader and politician. He was also an author who wrote over twenty-five publications. Her mother is an American citizen with an English Literature degree. Shoufani began her education at the Lebanese American University in Beirut where she studied communicative arts. Howard University in Washington D.C., the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and the Berlin Poetry Festival in Germany. She has also hosted the Emirates Literacy Festival and the Sikka Art Fair. She is the founder of the Poeticians, which was started in Beirut in 2007, She has two publications of poetry, More Light Than Death Could Bear (Beirut, 2007) and Inkstains on the Edge of Light (Beirut, 2010).

In 2011, she participated in the International Writing Program Fall Residency at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.

Poetry

Shoufani's free verse poetry tackles themes of love, death, lust, identity, Palestinian interests, freedom, and feminist issues in the Arab world.

The 2020 short film The Present, co-written by Shoufani and Farah Nabulsi and edited by Shoufani, won the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film in 2021. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.