Naomi Shihab Nye @ BookPeople

The enigmatic Naomi Shihab Nye seems determined to undermine categorization, judging from her extensive accomplishments: one might choose to call her a poet, novelist, editor, song-writer, essayist, teacher, or columnist. But when you strip away the labels and the mediums, it becomes crystal clear that she is, above all else, and social and cultural commentator.

Which shouldn't come as a surprise, given her background. As a child in her half-Palestinian, half-American family, Nye lived in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio; later, her extensive travels with the United States Information Agency took her to Asia and the Middle East. The worldly clarity imparted by these experiences resonates throughout Nye's works, whose characters struggle with issues from the porcelain detente that is altogether routine in Palestine to the frustrations and fears felt by Middle Eastern immigrants in the States after 9/11. Her latest project is a novel for teens, entitled Going Going. It is a thinly-veiled diatribe against the Walmart-ification of America, and a prosaic snapshot of the small independent businesses that succumb to the cutthroat profit margins of multinational corporations.

Now residing in San Antonio, Naomi Shihab Nye comes to Bookpeople this Sunday. This event kicks off BP's National Independents Week, which we'll tell you about later today.

Naomi Shihab Nye
Booksigning - Going, Going
Sunday, June 26 at 7pm
BookPeople