{"id":27221,"date":"2023-07-02T10:17:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T08:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=27221"},"modified":"2025-09-04T15:45:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T13:45:36","slug":"stories-from-the-markaz-stories-from-the-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/stories-from-the-markaz-stories-from-the-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories From The Markaz, Stories From the Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>A special double issue of TMR that celebrates many centers.<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Malu Halasa<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We had just finished editing <em>Stories From the Markaz<\/em> \u2014 \u201c<em>markaz<\/em>,\u201d the Arabic-Persian-Turkish-Hebrew-Urdu word for \u201cthe center\u201d \u2014 when I saw that New York Times\u2019 Middle East bureau chief <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2023\/06\/28\/arts\/editors-recommendations-the-silences.html\">Vivian Yee<\/a> had published her cultural picks from the region. I was curious to see if her selection included any of the names or ideas we have in TMR\u2019s special literary issue for July and August.<\/p>\n<p>Instead Yee wrote about a 1994 film, an agricultural museum rarely opened to the public in Cairo, and an Egyptian singer from the 1980s. It suggested that the NYT bureau chief\u2019s cultural experience of the \u201cMiddle East\u201d had little to do with the contemporary currents shaping countries from Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east to Morocco in the west. It reminded me of a personal choice I made long ago: to focus on the arts, culture and literature from the region instead of political reporting.<\/p>\n<p>For too long, this immense and extremely varied geographic area of different parts of the world has been seen through the news prism of winners and losers of the wars and conflicts that have taken place, some of which continue until today.<\/p>\n<p>In culture, literature and the arts, people in the Middle East and North Africa, and the diaspora communities from these countries as well, speak for themselves and reveal their concerns, aspirations, humor and darkest thoughts \u2014 not for commodification in the Western press but for themselves and their communities. This creative expression is far more complex and compelling than the news. Just last month, the New York Times published an article about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/06\/21\/world\/middleeast\/iran-drought-water-climate.html\">drought in Iran\u2019s Sistan and Baluchestan province<\/a>, on the border with Afghanistan. Even though the climate change story mentioned the recent protests that had been taking place there, it didn\u2019t touch on the long-standing relationship that Iranian-Black Africans, descendants of slaves, have with the area. They were featured in TMR\u2019s slideshow in the Earth issue, by the photographer <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/from-the-city-to-the-desert-tahmineh-monzavi\/\">Tahmineh Monzavi<\/a>. She had told the same story of drought and riparian conflict through her photographs.<\/p>\n<p>If pictures are worth a thousand words then short stories are worth a thousand-and-one. The Markaz Review\u2019s special literary issue features short stories, memoir, plays, a graphic novel, and literary nonfiction. Some of it, which appears in English for the first time, was translated from Arabic or Persian. The themes are wide-ranging, from domestic abuse in Egypt from a child\u2019s point of view to multiracial relationships in London and queer experience in Beirut. Some stories straddle that gray area between fiction and nonfiction. Feminist Ghadeer Ahmed\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/abortion-tales-on-our-ground\/\">Abortion Tale: On Our Ground<\/a>\u201d incorporates direct quotations from interviews she did with women who underwent chilling, illegal abortions, in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>The nonfiction pieces address hybrid modernity, like by &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/being-without-belonging-a-jewish-wedding-in-abu-dhabi\/\">Being and Belonging<\/a>&#8221; with a Jewish wedding in Abu Dhabi. Literary criticism by <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/zahhak-an-etiology-of-evil\/\">Omid Arabian<\/a> demonstrates how a chapter from the 11th-century epic <em>Sh<\/em>\u0101<em>hnameh<\/em> (<em>Book of Kings)<\/em> by Ferdowsi in part explains how political evil can seed itself in the present-day world. And Doreen Metzner&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/rebels-of-the-alpujarras-a-house-in-granada\/\">Rebels of the Alpujarras: a House in Granada<\/a>&#8221; combines history and personal narrative.<\/p>\n<p>The short stories from Iran are bittersweet. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-long-walk-of-the-martyr-fiction-from-salar-abdoh\/\">The Long Walk of the Martyr<\/a>\u201d by award winning novelist Salar Abdoh provides an insider\u2019s view of the lives of men in the Shia militias who fought in Iraq and Syria. Like veterans of all wars, they return to their home country confused and dissatisfied. Danial Haghighi&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/here-freedom-fiction-from-danial-haghighi\/\">Here, Freedom<\/a>&#8221; and Alireza Iranmehr&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/arrival-in-the-dark-fiction-from-alireza-iranmehr\/\">Arrival in the Dark<\/a>&#8221; have uneasy or hardly workable relationships at the heart of their stories, due to the emotional weight of Iran\u2019s intrusive regime. Aliyeh Ataei&#8217;s essay &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/my-mother-is-a-tree-essay-by-aliyeh-ataei\/\">My Mother is a Tree<\/a>&#8221; evokes stories of those who have left home to find a new home in Europe. Wealth inequality is also a strand in the stories, whether the writing come from Lahore (&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/rich-and-poor-people-fiction-by-farah-ahamed\/\">Rich and Poor People<\/a>&#8220;) or Kuwait (&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/hayat-and-the-rain-fiction-from-mona-alshammari\/\">Hayat and the Rain<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>Pressures remain on women to marry, as seen in Natasha Tynes\u2019s short story &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-agency-a-story-by-natasha-tynes\/\">The Agency<\/a>&#8221; about a Jordanian matchmaking agency, on the verge of going global. Newcomer Ola Mustapha, whose debut novel <em>Other Names, Other Places<\/em>, will be published this month by Fairlight Press, upends the traditional mother-in-law joke and turns it into a spooky tale. <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/naar-are-you-illuminated\/\">Bint Magdaliyya<\/a> explores raw female desire, and novelist Abdellah Ta\u00efa&#8217;s moving story set between Algeria and Paris &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/nadira-of-tlemcen-fiction-from-abdellah-taia\/\">Nadira of Tlemcen<\/a>&#8221; surprises us with its tenderness.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27226\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/TMR-33-table-of-contents-banner-800pix.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/TMR-33-table-of-contents-banner-800pix.jpg 800w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/TMR-33-table-of-contents-banner-800pix-600x307.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/TMR-33-table-of-contents-banner-800pix-300x153.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/TMR-33-table-of-contents-banner-800pix-768x393.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Men too are well represented in the collection, and some in their best light. &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel\/\">The Light at the End of the Tunnel<\/a>&#8221; from the memoir <em>Light, I Am Coming<\/em> by the investigative reporter Mohamed Aboelgheit (1988\u20132022) are his moving last words on the human condition. The second chapter from <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/genesis-and-east-cairo-fiction-from-shady-lewis-botros\/\"><em>Brief History of Genesis and East Cairo<\/em><\/a> by Shady Lewis Botros is double the length of short stories that TMR usually publishes. It was so intriguing that the Markaz\u2019s women editors insisted it be included in its entirety, in this special double monthly issue. The protagonist of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-cactus-new-fiction-from-mohammed-al-naas\/\">The Cactus<\/a>\u201d by young Libyan novelist Mohammed Al Naas is a man, obsessed by a woman. Meanwhile, another male character tours the bath houses in Cairo, Beirut and Berlin also looking for love, in Ahmed Awadalla\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/in-shahrazads-hammam-fiction-by-ahmed-awadalla\/\">In Shahrazad\u2019s Hammam<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even after death, an unhealthy relationship can exert an obsessive corrosiveness on the living, as seen in the novelist Mai Al-Nakib\u2019s short story, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-burden-of-inheritance-fiction-from-mai-al-nakib\/\">The Burden of Inheritance<\/a>,\u201d while MK Harb\u2019s nuanced, poetic \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-city-within-fiction-from-mk-harb\/\">The City Within<\/a>\u201d is the renewal of a long-lasting love affair \u2014 not necessarily with a person but with a place, Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>On the opposite end of the spectrum is the monologue &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/stamp-me-a-monologue-by-yussef-el-guindi\/\">Stamp Me<\/a>&#8221; by Yussef El Guindi \u2014 a Lenny Bruce routine that never was. Hassan Abdulrazzak\u2019s narrative from his play <em>Four Chambers of the Heart<\/em>, \u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-ship-no-one-wanted-a-story-by-hassan-abdulrazak\/\">The Ship No One Wanted<\/a>,\u201d presents a love story of sorts, set against the wartime exodus of Syrian refugees and informed by the experience of Jews escaping the Holocaust. The Markaz\u2019s editor-in-chief Jordan Elgrably contributes a surprising short story about a migrant who comes to Europe, in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-afghan-and-the-persian-a-short-story\/\">The Afghan and the Persian<\/a>.\u201d (This writer is also present with the story &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/on-ice-fiction-from-malu-halasa\/\">On Ice<\/a>.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>The short story doesn\u2019t happen in a vacuum. Samira Azzam\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/tears-from-a-glass-eye-a-story-by-samira-azzam\/\">Tears from a Glass Eye<\/a>\u201d represents the evolution of the Palestinian short story as a precursor to Ghassan Kanafani\u2019s <em>Men in the Sun<\/em>. Rawand Issa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/inside-the-giant-fish-excerpt-from-rawand-issas-graphic-novel\/\"><em>Inside the Giant Fish<\/em><\/a>, both memoir and social commentary on the privatization of beaches in Lebanon, is part of a popular trend of graphic novels being published both at home, in their original language, and abroad, in English.<\/p>\n<p>Translators have been key to <em>Stories From The Markaz.<\/em> Some changed careers mid-profession to devote themselves to arts and letters. Others have spent lifetimes building platforms or bridges for voices, which give a fuller idea of a country or place, often spotlighted in the news because of politics or religion.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>I was still getting ready for the issue when I had to leave London and travel to West Yorkshire for the Bradford Literary Festival, where I spent time with the author Leila Aboulela. \u00a0For our \u201cWhat Lights Your Feminist Fire\u201d panel, she read a piece she had written about the very different lives of her mother, a career woman who went on the Hajj by herself, and Aboulela\u2019s traditional grandmother. In her mind, the Sudanese novelist said she associated age with tradition and thought her mother would eventually turn into her grandmother. But her mother defied a daughter\u2019s expectations and remains thoroughly independent.<\/p>\n<p>Aboulela is a generous writer who offered practical advice on the practice of her craft. Unlike many of us, she refuses to wake up to the news. Instead she goes straight to her desk, in a room of her own that her mother, a professional woman who worked at the dining room table, had been denied. Aboulela doesn\u2019t leave her desk until she has written her requisite 800 words. Six novels and two collections of short stories later show that one can accomplish much on such a routine.<\/p>\n<p>She suggested that all of us read a piece by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2016\/jun\/18\/my-writing-day-will-self\">Will Self on writing<\/a>. Self, the British novelist and raconteur, calls his 800 words a day \u201cConrads\u201d \u2014 after Joseph Conrad, a writer from whom Edward Said drew inspiration.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stories From The Markaz<\/em> is essential reading for July and August. Come back in September for TMR\u2019s next monthly edition, on architecture, and in October for a discussion on public intellectuals. In the meantime, the publication\u2019s weekly Monday editions will feature articles and criticism on the topical issues from the center of <em>our<\/em> Middle East and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>Malu Halasa,<\/strong><br \/>\nLiterary Editor,<br \/>\nThe Markaz Review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TMR&#8217;s literary editor introduces the 2023 double summer literary 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