Literatureאיאת אבו שמיס

Ayat Abou Shmeiss

Ayat Abou Shmeiss is an Arab-Israeli poet from Jaffa who writes poetry in Hebrew.

born 1984Writing Hebrew poetry as an Arab poetThe poetry book I Am TwoA Basket Full of Silent Languages

Occupation: poet

Ayat Abou Shmeiss was born in 1984 in Jaffa

Ayat Abou Shmeiss was born in Jaffa in 1984 to a Muslim family. She is the second of four children. Her mother could not read and pushed her to get a broad education.

She studied at the French school in Jaffa. She speaks 5 languages: Arabic, Hebrew, French, English and Spanish.

Her first poetry book, A Basket Full of Silent Languages, came out in 2013 in Arabic and Hebrew. Her second bilingual book, I Am Two, followed in 2018. Her poems deal with daily life, women's lives, family, and life in Jaffa as part of a minority.

She has explained her choice to write in Hebrew, saying she keeps Arabic as a holy language. She describes herself as a feminist and a religious Muslim. In 2015 filmmaker Noga Kalinsky made a short film about her, called Silent Languages.

She is married to Ahmed and has one son, Mahmoud.