Shawkat M. Toorawa is Brand Blanshard Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and has previously taught at Cornell University, the University of Mauritius, and Duke University. He has also worked in his family’s import/export companies in Malaysia and Mauritius.
Toorawa writes, thinks, and teaches about the writerly culture of Abbasid Baghdad; the Qur’an, in particular rhyme-words, hapaxes, and translation; the Indian Ocean, especially the Waqwaq Tree, and the Kreol literature of Mauritius; modern poetry; translation; and science fiction.
His books include Interpreting the Self, co-authored with the academic alliance RRAALL, on autobiography in the Arabic literary tradition; Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture, a study of the ninth-century bookman Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur; A Time Between Ashes and Roses, a critical edition and translation of a collection of long poems by the Syro-Lebanese poet, Adonis; a co-edited reference work, Arabic Literary Culture, 500–925; Consorts of the Caliphs, an edition and collaborative translation of Ibn al-Sa‘i’s 13th-century collection of women’s biographies; The City That Never Sleeps, an edited anthology of poetry about New York; and The Devotional Qur’an, a translated selection of beloved surahs and verses. An edited collection on the literary dimensions of the Qur’an is forthcoming.
Professor Toorawa is a member of RRAALL, executive editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, and a Director of the School of Abbasid Studies. He is on the boards of several journals, including the Journal of Abbasid Studies, the Journal of Arabic Literature, the Journal of Qur’anic Studies, and Quaderni di Studi Arabi. He is joint series editor of Lockwood Press’s Resources in Arabic and Islamic Studies, and of De Gruyter Brill’s IQSA Studies in the Qur’an.
