Ritta Baddoura

Born in 1980 in Deir el Kamar/Lebanon.

Ritta Baddoura studied drawing and painting at the Emmagoss Fine Arts Workshop in Beirut/Lebanon from 1996 to 1998 and piano at the Tekelian Music School in Beirut from 1992 to 1998. In 2006 she received her Master of Arts in clinical and pathological psychology from the Saint-Joseph University in Beirut and also took philosophy classes there from 2001 to 2005. Baddoura works as a lecturer and trainer for awareness, prevention and harm reduction of drug use in Beirut

Her poems have been published in various francophone poetry volumes, including Etoiles d’araignée (Mokhtarat, 2000), La naissance du dé (Dar An Nahar, 2003), De l’obscure étincelle, nouvelle poésie d’expression française (L’Harmattan, 2005), Pépites de nuit (La Cd-thèque, 2006), and Ritta parmi les bombes (Saqi books, 2008). In 2007 she published the short story Quinze in the magazine »D’un continent, l’autre. Six nouvelles francophones«.

Furthermore Baddoura performed her work at various cultural events, e. g. at the Festival de Freiké (2004), Le printemps des poètes in Beyrouth (2005), and Le XX I Salon du Livre de Paris (2006). Since 2007 she writes literary criticism for the Lebanese magazine »L’Orient Littéraire«. During the assault on Lebanon in July 2006, she started the blog ritta parmi les bombes with her poetry.

Recent projects: Entre-B, free jam poetry and music performance at the »You got to burn to shine« festival, Paris (2007); three poems published in »En attendant l’or«, a French magazine for alternative literary creation (2007); free jam poetry and music performance at the Nafas Beirut Festival, Espace SD contemporary art gallery, Lebanon (2006) and »Poe-sitions«, Shu Tabkha Ya Mara Art Festival, Beirut (2006).

Furthermore, Baddoura was awarded a gold medal in literature for her short story Quinze at the 5èmes Jeux de la Francophonie, Niger in 2005.