Ghassan Zeineddine
“I’m obsessed with character. I can’t start writing a story until I have a relatively good idea about the characters I’m writing about. I spend months just taking notes on them; I create big maps that show how the main and minor characters are connected. These maps are messy, with scrawled notes and arrows pointing in all directions. Inevitably, when I start writing, my characters evolve from my original conception of them and surprise me. This is the fun part.”
“At once urgent and timeless, the stories in Dearborn are searing and unflinching snapshots of an immigrant community struggling to carve out space for itself, to find home in unfamiliar territory. The unforgettable characters slash through stereotypes as they navigate heart-wrenching and absurd situations, all the while grappling with identity and intergenerational tensions. The world Zeineddine creates is filled with beauty, brutal realities, and humor. I couldn’t put it down.”
“Sly, straight-faced, tenderly wicked. . . . A classic American short story collection.”
“Funny and sincere. . . . connected by history, by ambition, by a myth of a nation that never manifests but is reborn again and again in the immigrant gaze.”
“Stories full of humor and warmth about an Arab American community. Inspiring. . . . Masterfully told. . . . What Zeineddine can do with a simple storyline and a few pages is a thing of wonder. A fantastic collection heralding the voice of a major new writer.”
Ghassan Zeineddine is the author of the story collection Dearborn (Tin House, 2023), named a Best Book of the Year by Electric Lit, Chicago Public Library, and Powell’s. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews praised the book as “A fantastic collection heralding the voice of a major new writer.” Dearborn was also named a Best Fiction Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and the Writer’s Bone Podcast. He is also the coeditor of the creative nonfiction anthology Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging (Wayne State University Press, 2022). His fiction has appeared in the Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, the Arkansas International, Witness, Pleiades, Fiction International, the Common, Epiphany, FOLIO, Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, and the Iron Horse Literary Review, among other publications.
He was asked by The Rumpus how the presumptive prejudice of American law enforcement towards Arab-Americans affects one’s psyche and and personhood. He replied, “It makes one really anxious. Arab Americans are gaining ground in local and national government and building thriving private businesses, yet there’s still the fear of federal agencies. You always question your idea of citizenship. You feel that you belong, you feel that you’re American, but at the same time, the government is singling you out. They don’t necessarily see you as an American; they see you as a Muslim or Arab. This brings a feeling that you’re always targeted. It was the anxiety that I tried to capture in the story collection because I felt it myself.”
Currently a professor at Oberlin College, he has taught at the American University of Beirut, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Kenyon College, and the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
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