Saeed Taji Farouky: “Strange Cities Are Familiar”
The filmmaker behind "Tell Spring Not to Come This Year" and "A Thousand Fires" journeys with Mohammad Bakri to find home.
The Imagination Interviews
Nektaria Anastasiadou: “Gold in Taksim Square”
The novelist behind "A Recipe for Daphne" returns to multicultural Istanbul to write about love and death amongst the city's minorities.
Barrak Alzaid: “Pink and Blue”
A young storyteller in Kuwait is captivated by the lives of Filipina women he does not know.
Dima Mikhayel Matta: “This Text Is a Very Lonely Document”
A bold excerpt from the new Saqi anthology, "This Arab is Queer," in which a non-binary person from Lebanon explores solitude and family.
Steve Sabella: Excerpts from “The Parachute Paradox”
In these stories from his impassioned memoir, Steve Sabella works to decolonize the mind and liberate his identity.
Lisa Teasley: “Death is Beautiful”
Should we be happy we're finite? Lisa Teasley weaves a tale merging art, transhumanists and artificial intelligence.
Bakhtiyar Ali: “The Prisoner and the Plague”
From one of the most prominent contemporary authors and poets from Iraqi Kurdistan comes an unforgettable tale of oppression, and freedom.
Selma Dabbagh: “Trash”
A short story of international love from the author of the Gaza novel "Out of It."
“Buenos Aires of Her Eyes”—a story by Alireza Iranmehr
One of contemporary Iran's best storytellers conjures a tale of octogenarian love in a Nabokovian mode.
“The Salamander”—fiction from Sarah AlKahly-Mills
In this magical tale set in Lebanon and on a mysterious Mediterranean island, people dream of escape while a biologist seeks an elusive salamander.
Karim Kattan: “The Gravedigger”
The trilingual Palestinian novelist and short story writer weaves an engaging tale of love, death and redemption.
Hawra Al-Nadawi: “Tuesday and the Green Movement”
Translator Alice Guthrie shares a preview of Al-Nadawi's exquisite 2017 novel "Qismet," a Kurdish story set in Iraq and Iran.
“Intellectuals”—fiction from Hisham Bustani
From the fabulous — some would say surreal — Jordanian storyteller who gave us "The Monotonous Chaos of Existence."
“The Suffering Mother of the Whole World”—a story by Amany Kamal Eldin
A wayward daughter leaves Boston to spend a summer back home in Cairo, where she observes the decline of her once prominent family.
Book Review: “The Go-Between” by Osman Yousefzada
Hannah Fox reviews the Birmingham memoir by fashion artist Osman Yousefzada.