Syria Through British Eyes
British-Syrian novelist Rana Haddad compares her experience growing up in Syria with the way people beyond Syria's borders see her country.
Essays
Traveling in Contentious Spaces — Saudi Arabia
When friends in Abu Dhabi asked Deborah Williams how she could support MBS by going to “his” festival, she didn’t have an answer, only another question: how do we draw the lines around where we will or won’t go?
Etel Adnan’s Sun and Sea: In Remembrance
Art critic Arie Amaya-Akkermans summons the gods of art and poetry as he reviews the life work of the late polymath Etel Adnan, 1925-2021.
Climate Disasters Hasten the Advent of a World Refugee Crisis
Novelist Omar El Akkad ("What Strange Paradise", "American War") warns that wildfires and other climate disasters are creating the conditions for a global refugee crisis the world is not prepared for.
Reconsidering Thoreau in a Burning World
Megan Marshall on living with things lost in the Caldor Fire and revisiting Henry David Thoreau.
A Street in Marrakesh Revisited
In which the editor of "Poetic Justice: An Anthology of Contemporary Moroccan Poetry" remembers her introduction to life in Marrakesh.
The New Politics of Exclusion: Gaza as Prologue
Gaza’s small size, its misery, and continued vulnerability belie its profound significance, which has always been misunderstood and overlooked—except by Israel.
The Untold Story of Zakaria Zubeidi
Ramzy Baroud writes of a whole generation of Palestinians in the West Bank who are caught up in an impossible dilemma.
Khalida Jarrar—How to Resist and Win inside Israeli Prisons
Ramzy Baroud presents an excerpt of the memoir by former Israeli prisoner and attorney Khalida Jarrar.
Displaced: From Beirut to Los Angeles to Beirut
Ara Oshagan I am walking along the narrow and labyrinthine Armenian neighborhoods of Bourj Hammoud in Beirut—spaces with names like Nor (new) Marash, Nor Sis, Nor Yozgat. These are the… Continue reading Displaced: From Beirut to Los Angeles to Beirut
My Amazigh Indigeneity (the Bifurcated Roots of a Native Moroccan)
Brahim El Guabli I am Amazigh, Black, and Sahrawi. Amazigh language is my mother tongue. My mother is Black, and my father is Sahrawi. The only picture I own… Continue reading My Amazigh Indigeneity (the Bifurcated Roots of a Native Moroccan)
Why Resistance Is Foundational to Kurdish Literature
Kurdish writer Ava Homa on how statelessness, trauma and political exile shaped her novel "Daughters of Smoke and Fire."
The Complexity of Belonging: Reflections of a Female Copt
Nevine Abraham Growing up in Shoubra, one of the most populated Christian suburbs of Cairo, I met all my Muslim friends at a French Catholic school, which they and… Continue reading The Complexity of Belonging: Reflections of a Female Copt
Attack the Empire and the Empire Strikes Back: What 20 Years of American Imperialism Has Wrought
Omar El Akkad, author of American War and What Strange Paradise, looks at 20 years of blowback.
Voyage of Lost Keys, an Armenian art installation
Aimée Papazian Art and text by Aimée Papazian; photos by Stephen Ironside “Voyage of Lost Keys,” a permanent art installation recently installed in the Fayetteville Public Library in Arkansas,… Continue reading Voyage of Lost Keys, an Armenian art installation