Leila Gorguis

Canadian poet and writer of Lebanese descent living in Montreal and member of the Union of Writers and Women authors, Quebec (UNEQ).

She is licensed in “Immigration and Ethnic relations” and  “Creative Writing”.

Her publications represent a range of different colored literary and artistic genres. She writes poetry, short stories, novels, and reporting. She worked as a journalist for several Arab weekly published in Canada, such as “Al-Miraat”, “Libanorama” and “Aljarida”, where she has published reports describing her cultural tours in the Middle East, including Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan.

She considers that her participation in the reconstruction of the Lyre of Ur (led by British harpist Andy Lowing) marked her literary career.

In August 2008, The American University of Iowa supported the production of an array of classical ballet, created by choreographer Alan Sener, who was inspired by her poem “A lyre in the eye of the sun”, and the pace of her reading. The marriage of poetry and dance sowed the seeds of a new collaborative art being created.

Publications:

• From Beirut to Nineveh, poetry, Cairo-Egypt, Al-Hadara Publishing, 2008
• I am here and there, poetry, Beirut-Lebanon, Da Al-Farabi, 2011

Projects:

• Art project in collaboration with Alan Sener (choreographer and dance teacher at the University of Iowa in the United States, Columbine Macher (choreographer and dancer) :
• The trilogy of poetic art Scheherazade in an artstical frame, giving the words to the movements (The scent of Scheherazade, The illusion of Scheherazade, Scheherazade’s funeral)