Joumana Haddad is a Lebanese author, journalist and human rights activist who has worked in the An-Nahar newspaper since 1997, also heading its cultural pages from 2005 to 2017. She was selected as one of the world’s 100 most powerful Arab women for four years in a row by the Arabian Business magazine (ranked 34th in 2017), for her cultural and social activism.

An instructor of creative writing and modern Arabic poetry at the Lebanese American University (LAU) from 2013 to 2016, she also acted as the administrator of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (supported by the Booker Prize Foundation) from 2007 to 2011.

She has published several widely-acclaimed poetry and prose works, which were translated into several languages and published abroad.
Joumana is a polyglot who masters seven languages and has published several translation works, including an anthology of Lebanese modern poetry in Spanish, published in Spain, and several Latin American countries, as well as an anthology of 150 poets who committed suicide in the 20th century.
As a journalist, Joumana has interviewed several high-profile international writers, such as Umberto Eco, Paul Auster, Jose Saramago, Peter Handke, and Elfriede Jelinek.

Awards
After receiving the Arab Press Prize in 2006, Joumana was chosen in October 2009 as one of the 39 most interesting Arab writers under the age of 39.

In November 2009, she won the NordSud International Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Pescarabruzzo Foundation in Italy. This was followed in February 2010 by the Blue Metropolis Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize.

In August 2010, Joumana received the Rodolfo Gentili Prize in Porto Recanati, Italy and the Cutuli Prize for journalism in Catania, Italy in November 2012.

In July 2013, she was appointed Honorary Ambassador for Culture and Human Rights in the Mediterranean by the mayor of the Italian city of Naples Luigi de Magistris.

In February 2014, she was awarded the “Career Poetry Prize” by the Archicultura Foundation in Acquiterme, Italy.