Professor Bennoune Accepts Dayton Literary Peace Prize

Professor Karima Bennoune travelled to Dayton, Ohio on November 9 to accept the 2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction. Professor Bennoune was honored for her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight against Muslim Fundamentalism. Inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States.

As part of the proceedings, Ohio Governor John Kasich issued a proclamation to honor Professor Bennoune: "As a writer, you have promoted peace and humanity and we are proud to recognize the caliber of your work and the importance of its message.  Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here contains eye-opening accounts of resistance and opposition to religious extremism. In a time when religious fundamentalism has changed the lives of countless people around the world, your work is a tribute to those who have stood up to demand peace and religious freedom.  We applaud you for telling their stories and we thank you for the positive impact you have made."

Karima Bennoune is an author, lecturer, teacher, and international law scholar as well as the first Arab-American to be honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. She joined the King Hall faculty from Rutgers School of Law-Newark in 2012.