Susan Muaddi Darraj

[1] Born in Philadelphia to Palestinian immigrant parents, she attended Rutgers University - Camden, NJ, where she earned a master's degree in English Literature.

Muaddi Darraj is a tenured professor of English Literature at Harford Community College as well as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Johns Hopkins University.

[citation needed] Muaddi Darraj's first work of fiction, The Inheritance of Exile, was published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2008.

A Curious Land follows the inhabitants of a fictional Palestinian West Bank village, Tel al-Hilou ("the pretty hilltop") and traces their intertwined lives from the era of the Ottoman Empire through the first Intifada.

"[6] The series has received much praise for its groundbreaking portrayal of a happy, healthy and well-adjusted child of Arab immigrants, which contradicts the usual "crisis plot" in which children of color are cast.

According to the publisher, "Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America.

The novel became, she wrote in LitHUb, "a story about Palestinians dealing with the loss of their homeland, as well as with the urgency of living in a country that is, itself, fraught with class tensions and unable to confront its racist past.

With Waïl Hassan, she co-edited a volume for the MLA's Approaches to Teaching World Literature Series on Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz.

Muaddi Darraj authored several young adult biographies, including books about the lives of groundbreaking Americans such as Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente (baseball players), as well as Mary Eliza Mahoney[11] (the first African American nurse); she has also written biographies for young readers about famous writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Amy Tan.

#TweetYourThobe was covered widely by CNN, The New York Times,[17] Forbes Magazine, Business Insider, NPR,[18] Public Radio International,[19] and other venues.