Author: Hadani Ditmars

Hadani Ditmars has been reporting from the Middle East on culture, society, and politics since the '90s. She is the author of Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq and a former editor at New Internationalist. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Sight and Sound, the San Francisco Chronicle, Haaretz, Wallpaper, Vogue, and Ms. Magazine, and broadcast on CBC, BBC, NPR, and RTE. Her book in progress, Between Two Rivers, is a political travelogue of ancient and sacred sites in Iraq.

Baghdad Art Scene Springs to Life as Iraq Seeks Renewal

Hadani Ditmars, fresh from a return trip to Iraq, surveys the burgeoning plastic arts scene.

An Arab and a Jew Walk into a Bar…

Our columnist compares Arab/Muslim and Jewish humor and finds more in common than one might expect.

Burning Forests, Burning Nations

Columnist Hadani Ditmars recounts meeting strangers at the beach during fire season in British Columbia and finds Syria and Turkey are shared homelands.

The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?

Hadani Ditmars reviews Janine di Giovanni's ambitious new travelogue on beleaguered Christian communities in Iraq, Gaza, Syria, and Egypt.

Iraq’s Tishreen Movement Lives, Despite Government Corruption, Oppression

October marks the second anniversary of Iraq’s thawra. The non-violent Tishreen movement continues to demand all the things many of us take for granted. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have… Continue reading Iraq’s Tishreen Movement Lives, Despite Government Corruption, Oppression

20 Years Ago This Month, 9/11 at Souk Ukaz

Hadani Ditmars The commemoration of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 unfolds in televisual real time and yet with a strange sense of suspended animation, as if we’re on a slow… Continue reading 20 Years Ago This Month, 9/11 at Souk Ukaz

Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban

On the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Hadani Ditmars remembers the treasures and the ruins of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope

Hadani Ditmars reviews the new tome from Terreform and AUC Press that gives Gazans hope for a better future, if they can build it.

The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era

Hadani Ditmars remembers what Baghdad was like following the second Gulf War in 2003, when she toured Abu Ghraib with Robert Fisk.