The Angels of Desire
Youssef Rakha meditates on dreams and desire, and why he might just be ready to die for a stranger.
Essays
Carlo in Belgrade (in which a father loves a son)
A father's love for one of his sons is almost ineffable, in Hanif Kureishi's journal intime and travel account in Covid times.
“Gluttony” from Abbas Beydoun’s “Frankenstein’s Mirrors”
Lebanese poet-novelist Abbas Baydoun reflects in an autobiographical mode on the melancholy of language and existence, while contemplating sweets.
Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes
Syrian artist and writer Khalil Younes recalls the strained sexuality of Martyrs Square in Damascus.
Reza Abdoh: L.A.’s Theatre Visionary
Playwright and theatre director Reza Abdoh left his mark on Los Angeles and national theatre culture, as actor-writer Juliana Francis Kelly recounts in her look back on their collaborative relationship.
“Where Are You From?” Identity and the Spirit of Ethno-Futurism
Writer and film executive Bavand Karim meditates on Iranian American identity and an alternative vision for self-realization in the context of the ethno-futurist movement.
The Alexandrian: Life and Death in L.A.
An Egyptian American daughter recalls the enduring love her immigrant father harbored for Los Angeles and the American Dream.
(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”
Arie Akkermans reviews an Iraqi American's exhibitions as they attempt to recreate missing and destroyed artifacts taken from the National Museum of Iraq after the American invasion in 2003.
Mapping an Escape from Cairo’s Hyperreality through informal Instagram archives
Even as the despotic rulers of post-revolution Egypt attempt to remake greater Cairo, hoping to gloss over the regime's dismal human rights record, one writer sees through the smoke and mirrors.
Taming the Immigrant: Musings of a Writer in Exile
Former prisoner and Egyptian writer in exile Ahmed Naji contemplates what it means to be a "brown writer" in exile in America.
Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay
Photographer, documentarian and journalist Iason Athanasiadis shares images from more than 10 years of reporting from Afghanistan to Greece and back.
Objective Brits, Subjective Syrians
"What a British person imagined Syria or the Middle East to be ... was more important than what I or people like me thought. We were subjective, but their opinions were objective."
Sudden Journeys: The Villa Salameh Bequest
Jenine Abboushi inaugurates a new monthly column with a story about a prominent family that lost everything in Palestine.
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.
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?