Elliott Colla

Elliott Colla
Elliott Colla
Occupation	Associate Professor
Nationality	American
Subject	Middle East
Notable works	Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity

Elliott Colla is an American scholar of the Middle East, specializing in Arabic literature and culture. ^[1] He is an associate professor in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and leads the Reading Palestine book club at Lost City Books. ^[2]

Career

Colla received a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley in 1989 and his Ph.D. in Comparative literature from Berkeley in 2000. ^[3] His translation of Gold Dust was runner-up for the Banipal Prize in 2009. ^[4] He is a co-editor of the e-zine, Jadaliyya . ^[5] In addition to translations and academic works, he has published a novel Baghdad Central (2014). This was adapted as a television series of the same name, released in 2020. ^[6]

Books

• Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
• Baghdad Central London: Bitter Lemon Press, 2014.

Translations

• Ibrahim Aslan - The Heron
• Idris Ali - Poor
• Ibrahim al-Koni - Gold Dust
• Rabai Madhoun - The Lady from Tel Aviv ^[7]

Further reading

• Looking for the Three of Diamonds Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine MERIP.
• "The Poetry of Revolt", jadaliyya e-zine.
• The People Want Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine MERIP.
• The Persistence of Jokes jadaliyya e-zine.
• Walls jadaliyya e-zine.
• "The Poetry of Revolt” in the New Egypt Radio Open Source.

See also

• List of Arabic-English translators

References

1. "Citations search: "Elliott Colla" (Google Books)" . Retrieved 13 October 2012.
2. "Reading Palestine". Lost City Bookstore. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
3. "Banipal biography". Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
4. "Banipal Trust biography". Banipal Trust. Archived from the original on 22 August 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
5. "Elliott Colla". Jadaliyya. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
6. Jones, Ellen E. (4 February 2020). "Baghdad Central review – more than just a Middle East Morse". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
7. "Georgetown University: Elliott Colla". Georgetown University. Retrieved 13 October 2012.

External links

• author webpage
• Georgetown University Biography
• Banipal Biography