Dunya Mikhail was born in Iraq in 1965 and came to the United States in 1996. She has six books in Arabic, three in English, and one in Italian. They include The Iraqi Nights, Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea, and The War Works Hard. She also edited a pamphlet of Iraqi poetry titled 15 Iraqi Poets. Her Arabic books are published in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia. Her books in English are published in New York by New Directions. They are translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and Elizabeth Winslow, and into Italian by Elena Chiti. Her honors include the Kresge Fellowship, Arab American Book Award, and the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. The War Works Hard was shortlisted for Griffin, and named one of “Twenty-Five Books to Remember from 2005” by the New York Public Library. She is the co-founder of Mesopotamian Forum for Art and Culture in Michigan. She currently works as an Arabic special lecturer at Oakland University in Michigan.