About
Arlo Haskell is an award-winning writer, literary organizer, and publisher. Much of his work focuses on the literary and social histories of Key West, Florida.
He is the author of "The Jews of Key West: Smugglers, Cigar Makers, and Revolutionaries (1823-1969)," which received the 2017 Florida Book Award (Philip and Dana Zimmerman Prize for Florida Nonfiction). He is also the author of the poetry collections "Fool Proof "(2003) and "Joker" (2009). As an editor, Haskell has worked on critically acclaimed editions of poetry and literature in translation, including "The Last Books of Héctor Viel Temperley" (translated by Stuart Krimko and named a BOMB magazine “Editor’s Choice” for 2011) and Harry Mathews’s poetry collection, "The New Tourism" (selected as a Times Literary Supplement “Book of the Year” in 2010). Most recently, he is the editor of Mathews’s "Collected Poems: 1946-2016" (2020).
Haskell lives with his family in Key West, Florida, where he is executive director of the Key West Literary Seminar. In 2019, he was named Poet Laureate of Key West by the Key West City Commission.
Featured Work
The Jews of Key West: Smugglers, Cigar Makers, and Revolutionaries (1823-1969)
The dramatic story of South Florida’s oldest Jewish community and a major addition to the history of this unique island city.
Long before Miami was on the map, Key West had Florida’s largest economy and an influential Jewish community. Jews who settled here as peddlers in the nineteenth century joined a bilingual and progressive city that became the launching pad for the revolution that toppled the Spanish Empire in Cuba. As dozens of local Jews collaborated with José Martí’s rebels, they built relationships that supported thriving Jewish communities in Key West and Havana at the turn of the twentieth century. During the 1920s, when anti-immigration hysteria swept the United States, Key West’s Jews resisted the immigration quotas and established “the southernmost terminal of the Jewish underground,” smuggling Jewish aliens in small boats across the Florida Straits to safety in Key West. But these and other Jewish exploits were kept secret as Ku Klux Klan leaders infiltrated local law enforcement and government. Many Jews left Key West during the 1930s and their stories were ignored or forgotten by the mythmakers that reinvented Key West as a tourist mecca.
Arlo Haskell’s The Jews of Key West is is an entertaining and authoritative account of Key West’s Jewish community from 1823-1969. Illustrated with over 100 images, it brings to life a history that had long been forgotten.
Other Works
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Joker
2009
Awards and Recognition
- 2017 FLORIDA BOOK AWARD The Phillip and Dana Zimmerman Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction
Press and Media Mentions
- WPBT (South Florida PBS station): Arlo Haskell and The Jews of Key West on Art Loft.
- LitHub: Arlo Haskell remembers Harry Mathews, on the release of Mathews’ Collected Poems: 1946-2016.
- New York Times: "Literary Nonprofit Buys Elizabeth Bishop’s Key West Home"
- WLRN: (South Florida NPR station): The Jews of Key West is a Sundial Book Club Selection
- Tablet Magazine: Excerpt from The Jews of Key West — “Smuggling Jewish Refugees in Key West.”
- The Jewish Book Council: “Fascinating story … skillfully told… Haskell fills ["The Jews of Key West"] with detailed and colorful sketches of individuals and families, bringing their accomplishments to life through personal letters, contemporaneous newspaper articles, and archival photos and drawings… This excellent book will appeal to readers who want to better understand the richness and diversity of the American Jewish experience.”
