The Markaz Review

TMR Bookgroup Discusses Enter Ghost, with novelist Isabella Hammad
2023-06-04 19:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here

The June 2023 BookGroup Selection is Enter Ghost, a novel by Isabella Hammad. She will be interviewed by editors Rana Asfour and Jordan Elgrably on Sunday, June 4, at 1 pm Eastern, 18:00 UK and 19:00 EU.
Enter Ghost follows actress Sonia as she returns to Palestine and takes a role in a West Bank production of Hamlet. After years away from her family’s homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. This is her first trip back since the second intifada and the deaths of their grandparents: while Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.
At Haneen’s, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Sonia is soon rehearsing Gertude’s lines in Classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than Haifa, along with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.
A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad’s highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.
We’ll discuss this novel on Sunday, June 4th, at 1 pm Eastern.
RSVP here

WORK—a TMR Roundtable Conversation With 5 Writers, May 18th, 12 pm ET/18:00 CET
2023-05-18 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
Join The Markaz Review for a spirited roundtable with Iason Athanasiadis • Ahmed Awadalla • Nashwa Nasreldin • Meera Santhanam • Anis Shivani & moderator Jordan Elgrably, in a conversation about work in journalism (Iason Athanasiadis on Al Jazeera), working in Cairo and Berlin (Ahmed Awadalla), working as an Arab Muslim woman in the UK (Nashwa Nasreldin), covering a woman filmmaker struggling to make her film in Lebanon (Meera Santhanam), and immigrant workers in fiction (Anis Shivani). Read writers’ WORK stories here.
This online roundtable is open to all, free to the public; donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review, a nonprofit with no paywall, and no advertising.
RSVP here

Hadiya Hassein: Waiting for the Past
2023-05-07 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
April 2023 BookGroup Selection is Waiting for the Past, a novel by Hadiya Hussein, translated from the Arabic by Barbara Romaine
Hadiya Hussein’s poignant novel plunges readers into a haunting and powerful story of resilience. Set at the end of Saddam Hussein’s brutal reign, the novel follows Narjis, a young Iraqi woman, on her quest to discover what has become of the man she loves. Yusef, suspected by the regime of being a dissident, has disappeared–presumably either imprisoned or executed. On her journey, Narjis receives shelter from a Kurdish family who welcome her into their home where she meets Umm Hani, an older woman who is searching for her long-lost son. Together they form a bond, and Narjis comes to understand the depth of loss and grief of those around her. At the same time, she is introduced to the warm hospitality of the Kurdish community, settling into their everyday lives, and embracing their customs. Barbara Romaine’s translation skillfully renders this complex, layered story, giving readers a stark yet beautiful portrait of contemporary Iraq.
We’ll discuss this novel on Sunday, May 7, at 12 pm Eastern.

Sophia Al-Maria's memoir The Girl Who Fell to Earth
2023-03-26 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
email books@themarkaz.org to join this event on Zoom
March 2023 BookGroup Selection is The Girl Who Fell to Earth, a memoir by Sophia Al-Maria (discussing the book on Sunday, March 26, 13 Eastern/18:00 CET).
Award-winning filmmaker and writer Sophia Al-Maria’s The Girl Who Fell to Earth is a funny and wry coming-of-age memoir about growing up in between American and Gulf Arab cultures. Part family saga and part personal quest, The Girl Who Fell to Earth traces Al-Maria’s journey to make a place for herself in two different worlds.
When Sophia Al-Maria’s mother sends her away from rainy Washington State to stay with her husband’s desert-dwelling Bedouin family in Qatar, she intends it to be a sort of teenage cultural boot camp. What her mother doesn’t know is that there are some things about growing up that are universal. In Qatar, Sophia is faced with a new world she’d only imagined as a child. She sets out to find her freedom, even in the most unlikely of places.
The Girl Who Fell to Earth takes readers from the green valleys of the Pacific Northwest to the dunes of the Arabian Gulf and on to the sprawling chaos of Cairo. Struggling to adapt to her nomadic lifestyle, Sophia is haunted by the feeling that she is perpetually in exile: hovering somewhere between two families, two cultures, and two worlds. She must make a place for herself—a complex journey that includes finding young love in the Arabian Gulf, rebellion in Cairo, and, finally, self-discovery in the mountains of Sinai.
The Girl Who Fell to Earth heralds the arrival of an electric new talent and takes us on the most personal of quests: the voyage home.

The Search for Home: a Markaz Review Roundtable
2023-03-23 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP Here

The Markaz Review invites you to our HOME roundtable conversation featuring six of the writers in the latest issue talking about their essays as we seek to address the meaning of home. Due to climate disaster, war, civil strife and economic fallout, there are more than 65 million refugees, not to mention the millions of internally displaced migrants in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, to name but a few of the countries experiencing upheaval. As senior writer Arie Amaya-Akkermans notes in his essay, For Those Who Dwell in Tents, “The tents of refuge are not just a prophetic metaphor, but a political reality for millions of people.”
This discussion includes Yesmine Abida on her essay Nabeul, Mon Amour on the town’s lost Jewish community; contributing editor Iason Athanasiadis on his 20-year Odyssey That Forged a Stronger Athenian; Aomar Boum on his brother Mohammed at home in Morocco; TMR’s literary editor Malu Halasa on Broken Home: Britain in the Time of Migration; and Lushik Lotus Lee on Coming of Age in a Revolution. The roundtable is moderated by TMR’s editor, Jordan Elgrably.
This online event is free to the public; donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review, a nonprofit that is free to the public, with zero advertising.
Thursday, March 23, at 19:00 CET (2 pm Eastern, 18:00 UK).

RSVP Here

TMR Conversations: Raja Shehadeh & Amal Ghandour
2023-03-16 18:00 - 19:00 (Asia/Beirut) | Online
RSVP
Palestinian attorney Raja Shehadeh, author most recently of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, will discuss his latest work, along with such previous books as Palestinian Walks and Strangers in the House. He is a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah. Shehadeh is a founder of the pioneering, nonpartisan human rights organization Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, and the author of several books about international law, human rights, and the Middle East.
Amal Ghandour is the author of This Arab Life: A Generation’s Journey into Silence. Since 2009, she has held the position of Senior Strategy Adviser to Ruwwad al Tanmeyah, a regional community development initiative that spans Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt.
This talk is free to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review, a nonprofit literary arts review in English, French, Spanish and soon, Arabic. Thursday, the 16th of March, 18:00 Beirut/Ramallah • 17:00 CET • 12 noon Daylight Standard Time (New York).
RSVP

Iraq, 20 Years After the War, From the Viewpoint of Its Creatives
2023-03-02 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP now
Iraq, 20 years after the War, Thursday, 2 March, 18:00 CET (12 noon ET/17:00 UK/19:00 Beirut/21:00 Abu Dhabi).
Several participants in this month’s issue on IRAQ will gather together online to discuss their work and where we are today, nearly 20 years after the commencement of the Iraq War, an Anglo-American disaster that befell millions of Iraqis.
Joining the conversation (so far) are playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak and musician Hardi Kurda in the UK and artist Lahib Jaddo in the US.

This conversation will take place online, from 18:00 – 19:00 CET. It will be moderated by Rana Asfour and Malu Halasa.

RSVP now

Négar Djavadi's Disoriental, Sunday, Feb. 26, 12 noon Eastern
2023-02-26 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
February 2023 BookGroup Selection is Disoriental, the novel by Négar Djavadi.

“Our memories select, eliminate, exaggerate, minimize, glorify, denigrate. They create their own versions of events and serve up their own reality.” —Négar Djavadi

The story of a young girl and her family, at the core of an exploration of Iranian history.
Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five, with a new life and the prospect of a child, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which reach her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them.
In this high-spirited, kaleidoscopic story, key moments of Iranian history, politics, and culture punctuate stories of family drama and triumph. Yet it is Kimiâ herself—punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own “disorientalization”—who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel.

We Read/Discuss Out of Mesopotamia, the novel by Salar Abdoh, and Meet the Author
2023-01-29 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
THE JANUARY BOOKGROUP SELECTION IS is Out of Mesopotamia, by Salar Abdoh (no bookgroup meeting in December). The discussion takes place, with the author, on Sunday, January 29, 2023, 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET.
“Imagine getting into Iraq and Syria as an observer of the war on ISIS, and yet very soon after you’ve been close enough to RPGs to smell the explosion and feel the ground shake, you find yourself back in your old life, giving literary readings at swank bookstores in cities at peace, or attending highbrow academic conferences where nobody’s dying, except perhaps bored audience members. Juxtaposing the two realities — one savage and ridiculous, the other sane and predictable — is what the author is after in Out of Mesopotamia.” —Jessica Proett, The Markaz Review
To join the group, email books@themarkaz.org.

Salar Abdoh is an Iranian novelist and essayist who divides much of his time between New York and Tehran. He is the author of the novels Poet Game (2000), Opium (2004), Tehran At Twilight (2014), and Out of Mesopotamia (2020) and the editor and translator of the anthology Tehran Noir (2014). He also teaches in the graduate program in Creative Writing at the City College of New York at the City University of New York. Abdoh seeks to help Iran re-engage with the Arab world and convey more of Iranian culture to the west. Salar Abdoh at Goodreads.

Nov 2022 BookGroup Selection is "I Will Never See the World Again" by Ahmet Altan
2022-11-27 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
Online discussion, everyone welcome.

The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision that will determine my future, just as he awaited his. I am unaware of my destiny, which has perhaps already been decided, just as he was unaware of his. I suffer the pathetic torment of profound helplessness, just as he did.
Like a cursed oracle, I foresaw my future years ago not knowing that it was my own.
Confined in a cell four meters long, imprisoned on absurd, Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, written from his prison cell, Altan reflects upon his sentence, on a life whittled down to a courtyard covered by bars, and on the hope and solace a writer’s mind can provide, even in the darkest places.
Turkey in the last several years has become one of the greatest oppressors of writers, academics and intellectuals, with the largest prison population of political detainees in continental Europe. Erdoğan, consolidating his power, has fired over 5,000 academics and 50,000 schoolteachers, whose progressive politics or Kurdish heritage he disliked, or who as journalists/editors/publishers have been too outspoken, such as widely translated novelist and newspaper editor Ahmet Altan, 72. The author of such internationally admired works as the novels in his Ottoman Quartet, Altan was sentenced to life in prison in 2016. He spent four years behind bars but was unexpectedly released last year. He said recently, “Prison didn’t extinguish my desire to write.”

Find it on Goodreads.

Sunday, Nov. 27th.
RSVP with your name to books@themarkaz.org.

TMR Bookgroup Discusses "The Last White Man" by Mohsin Hamid
2022-10-30 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
The Guardian calls Mohsin Hamid’s new novel “a hypnotic race fable,” in which “as white people suddenly awake in brown skin, they are forced to confront uncomfortable truths about power and identity.”

“One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.” So begins Mohsin Hamid’s inventive new novel, The Last White Man. Anders, as it turns out, is not an isolated case. More people in an unnamed town begin to change, including Oona, a yoga instructor and a friend of Anders. Violence inevitably erupts around them. White vigilante gangs terrorize the transformed, while some doggedly refuse to accept an end to whiteness.
At its heart, this is a novel about seeing, being seen, loss and letting go. The loss of privilege that comes from being perceived as white, and no longer being able to view the world from within whiteness, are some of the anxieties examined here.
(From The Guardian review by Guy Gunaratne.)
Sunday, Oct. 30th. To join the conversation, email books@themarkaz.org.

TMR Bookgroup Discusses Mai Al-Nakib's "An Unlasting Home" with the author
2022-09-25 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
When you live in a conservative society, you run the risk of censure. How far should a philosophy professor stick her neck out to make a point? Would you put it all on the line in the pursuit of truth or justice, or whatever informs your intent?

An Unlasting Home, by award-winning short story writer Mai Al-Nakib, opens in the summer of 2013. Sara Tarek Al-Ameed, a professor of philosophy at the Kuwait University for eleven years, is in the midst of preparing a paper arguing the importance of supplementing the religious curriculum with an early introduction to philosophy at the level of primary public school education in Kuwait. However, a phone recording by one of the munaqaba girls in her intro to philosophy class (in which she is heard arguing that “God is dead”) has been passed on to the most conservative member of the Kuwaiti Parliament — a Salafi, who has filed a complaint. Sara is arrested at her home and charged with blasphemy, a capital crime that comes with the threat of execution, under the newly amended Kuwaiti penal code. In the author’s note, Al-Nakib explains that although such an amendment did in fact come to pass by a wide majority of the elected parliament in 2013, the Emir of Kuwait, who holds authority over all amendments of laws, rejected it. This work of fiction, explains the author, imagines otherwise. (From the review by Rana Asfour.)
Sunday, Sept. 25, with novelist Mai Al-Nakib. To join discussion, email books@themarkaz.org.

TMR Bookgroup Discusses "The Handsome Jew" by Ali Al-Muqri
2022-08-28 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
The Handsome Jew is a challenging and provocative novel that urges/ invites Muslims and Jews to contemplate themselves and the way they see the other through a doomed love story. This powerful novel tells the tragic saga of two lovers, Salem, a Jew, and Fatima, a Muslim, who fall in a forbidden, intense, and passionate love against all circumstances designed to divide them in a society bound by religion. This boundary-crossing love story epitomises the doomed relationship between Jews and Muslims in Yemen, sheds light on how each community sees the other, interrogates religious and social barriers, and proves that, against all odds, love can conquer all — OR till death do the fated couple part. (Goodreads)
Sunday, Aug. 28, with translator Mbarek Sryfi. To receive the Zoom link, email books@themarkaz.org.

TMR Bookgroup discusses the stories of Ayelet Tsabari
2022-07-31 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
The Markaz Review runs an international book club that meets on Zoom every last Sunday of the month. Readers from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi share thoughts and insights on the month’s selection. Frequently, the author (and sometimes their translator) joins the group during the second half of the hour. Our bookgroup always meets the last Sunday at 1 pm Eastern.
On Sunday, July 31st, we will be talking about the short stories of Ayelet Tsabari in The Best Place on Earth.
Confident, original and humane, the stories in The Best Place on Earth are peopled with characters at the crossroads of nationalities, religions and communities: expatriates, travellers, immigrants and locals.
In the powerfully affecting opening story, “Tikkun,” a chance meeting between a man and his former lover carries them through near tragedy and into unexpected peace. In “Casualties,” Tsabari takes us into the military—a world every Israeli knows all too well—with a brusque, sexy young female soldier who forges medical leave forms to make ends meet. Poets, soldiers, siblings and dissenters, the protagonists here are mostly Israelis of Mizrahi background (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent), whose stories have rarely been told in literature. In illustrating the lives of those whose identities swing from fiercely patriotic to powerfully global, The Best Place on Earth explores Israeli history as it illuminates the tenuous connections—forged, frayed and occasionally destroyed—between cultures, between generations and across the gulf of transformation and loss. [Goodreads]
To get on the list to receive the Zoom link for July 31, email books@themarkaz.org.
TMR’s bookgroup is moderated by Jordanian bookworm (and editor/translator) Rana Asfour.

TMR Bookgroup Discusses Short Stories published in TMR 22
2022-06-26 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
The Markaz Review runs an international book club that meets on Zoom every last Sunday of the month. Readers from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi share thoughts and insights on the month’s selection. Frequently, the author (and sometimes their translator) joins the group during the second half of the hour. Our bookgroup always meets the last Sunday at 1 pm Eastern.
For Sunday, June 26th, we will be talking about the short stories included in TMR 22 • STORIES, by such writers as Hanif Kureishi, Joumana Haddad, Karim Kattan, Ahmed Naji, Mai Al-Nakib, Nektaria Anastasiadou, Sarah Kahly-Mills and others.
To get on the list to receive the Zoom link for June 26, email books@themarkaz.org.
TMR’s bookgroup is moderated by Jordanian bookworm (and editor/translator) Rana Asfour.

Reclaiming Palestinian Narratives in A Loveless World, with Susan Abulhawa
2022-06-08 12:00 - 13:15 (Europe/Helsinki)
Register for Free Here

“Reclaiming Narratives in A Loveless World” chaired by Susan Abulhawa – Visualizing Palestine, Makan & Al Shabaka Joint Campaign
This talk will take place on Wednesday 8th June 2022 at 5.00pm BST (12.00pm EST / 7.00pm Palestine time). The talk will last 1 hour and 15 minutes.
As part of the Threads of the Movement for Palestinian Liberation Joint Fundraising Campaign, VP, Makan & Al Shabaka present: ‘Reclaiming Narratives in A Loveless World’ with award-winning author Susan Abulhawa.
The discourse on Palestine has been shifting in different directions since the turn of the 20th century, marked by decades of struggle and labour by Palestinians and their allies. And as Palestinians came together last June under the banner of the Unity Intifada, forming a collective front against Israel’s ongoing colonisation, we witnessed in real time some of these ongoing shifts in the conversation. This shared moment helped to highlight the inaccuracy of the mainstream narrative and the international community’s refusal to acknowledge the lived experience of Palestinians or the realities of Israel’s apartheid and settler colonial regime. As a result, the usual mantra of a conflict between two equal sides was increasingly being called into question. Yet, while a more grounded understanding of Israel’s policies and practices is starting to enter the mainstream across North America & Europe, much work remains to fully reclaim the narrative to one that upholds freedom, justice and equality for all.
In this talk, novelist and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa will join with Alaa Tartir of Al-Shabaka, Aline Batarseh of Visualizing Palestine and Aimee Shalan of Makan, to discuss the history and context of the changing perceptions of the Palestinian struggle, what happens when the concept of ‘neutrality’ is disputed, why narrative shifts matter, and how – in an increasingly loveless world – they feed into the wider liberation movement.
Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian American writer and human rights activist. She is the author of the international best-selling novel, Mornings in Jenin, and the founder of the NGO, Playgrounds for Palestine. Against the Loveless World, her third novel, was released in August 2020 to critical acclaim.
Aline Batarseh joined Visualizing Palestine in July 2021 as Executive Director. She is a community organizer, activist and development professional. She has extensive experience working with Palestinian and international nonprofits whose missions are focused on advancing social justice and equality for individuals and communities that experience systemic discrimination.
Dr Alaa Tartir is a Program and Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, a Senior Researcher and Academic Coordinator at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland, and a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
Aimee Shalan is Co-Director of Makan. She is also a Trustee of Friends of Birzeit University (Fobzu), a policy member of the Palestinian policy network, Al Shabaka, and Chair of the British-Palestinian Council. Her previous roles have included: Chief Executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), Director of Friends of Birzeit University (Fobzu) and Co-founder and Director of Pressure Cooker Arts, a not-for-profit arts and advocacy organisation. She has been a regular contributor to the Guardian and other media outlets. Aimee holds a doctorate in the Politics of Palestinian Literature.
Register for Free Here

Joumana Haddad's "The Book of Queens" with Radical Books & TMR
2022-06-04 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Register Here (Free Event)

This online event takes place June 4, 2022 at 12 noon Eastern/17:00 UK/18:00 CET

The Markaz Review in partnership with the Radical Books Collective presents a lively online discussion about Joumana Haddad’s new novel The Book of Queens from Interlink Books, with the author joining in the second half of the hour. Moderated by Bhakti Shringarpure.

Author Joumana Haddad
The Book of Queens is a family saga that spans four generations of women caught up in the tragic whirlwind of turf wars and suffering in the Middle East—from the Armenian genocide and the Israeli occupation of Palestine to modern-day civil wars and the struggles between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon and Syria.
Four queens of a deck of cards dealt a bad hand by fate—Qayah, Qana, Qadar and Qamar—form the branches of the same family tree rooted in the land of their origins despite the forceful winds that repeatedly try to carry them away. A line of red-haired women united by the ties of blood that runs through their veins—which violence has spread through the ages—each with a deep story and all with one thing in common: unwavering power and resilience in the face of adversities of being a woman in a war-torn region.
With the perfect mastery of finely chiseled writing, Joumana Haddad manages to construct a novel of extraordinary intensity, without ever sinking into pathos or grandiloquence. She also challenges the systematic abuse of political and religious power and authority that continues to cloud the lives of a culturally diverse and progressive youth until the present day.

Order a copy.
About the author
Joumana Haddad is an award-winning Lebanese author, journalist, and human rights activist. She was the cultural editor of An-Nahar newspaper for many years and now hosts a TV show focusing on human rights issues in the Arab world. She has received the Blue Metropolis Arab Literary Prize and the Arab Press Prize, among other honors, and was named one of the world’s 100 most powerful Arab women for four years in a row by Arabian Business magazine. Her works, which have been widely translated and published around the world, include I Killed Scheherazade, Superman is an Arab, and The Third Sex. The Book of Queens, her latest novel, has been translated into French, Italian, and Arabic.
About the host
Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, editor and educator. She is the Creative Director of the Radical Books Collective.
Register Here (Free Event)

The DC Arab Literature Festival: Narrating the Middle East, May 17-18 (Free)
2022-05-17 10:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
Register Here

Start: May 17th at 10 AM End: May 18th at 6 PM Cost: Free
The Middle East Institute’s Arts and Culture Center and The Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation in partnership with the Cheuse Center for International Writers at George Mason University present a two-day, virtual literature festival featuring writers and poets from the Middle East. Panels explore the works and experiences of leading and emerging Arab authors and poets and the challenges of publishing and translating works from the Middle East.
Keynote Speaker: Rabih Alameddine, May 17, 10:00
May 17, 10:45-12:00
Arab Fiction Now & the Challenges of Writing in and about the Region
This panel of leading regional and diaspora authors will discuss the inspiration for their most recent novels and the social, cultural and political context informing their work. The panel will also explore the challenges that Arab writers in the region and its diaspora face as they reflect on societies dealing with globalization, trauma, gender, sexuality and identity.
Ahmed Naji Egypt, Using Life, 2017
Zaina ArafatUS-Palestine, You Exist Too Much, 2021 Lambda Literary Award
Rasha Abbas Syria-Germany, The Gist of It, 2019
Matthew Davis (moderator)Founding director of the Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University and Assistant Professor Creative Writing George Mason University.
Monday, 12:30-2:00
Modern Poetry in the Arab World
This panel features Arab poets who will share their poems in English and the vision that drives their inspiration.
Nujoom al GhannemUAE, Asqoto fi Nafsi (I Fall into Myself), 2012
Zeina Hashem BeckLebanon, Author, “O”, ( forthcoming in July 2022)
Dunya MikhailIraq-US, In Her Feminine Sign, 2019
Nathalie Handal (moderator)Palestine-USA-France, poet, playwright, translator
More.

Nakba Remembrance Ceremony Hosted by Combatants for Peace
2022-05-15 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
Register for this free event here.

May 15, 2022 will mark the 74th anniversary of the Nakba, when historic Palestine ceased to exist and Israel established itself inside the Green Line borders.
Combatants for Peace, which is hosting this joint event, is an NGO whose members work toward a two state solution in the 1967 borders, OR any other mutually agreed upon solution that will allow both Israelis and Palestinians to live in freedom, security, democracy and dignity in their homeland.
The Nakba Remembrance Ceremony expresses Combatants for Peace’s belief that reconciliation, freedom, and respect involves a sincere reckoning with history. Together, Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals, we recall the horrors and pain of the year 1948; the year that marked a significant milestone in the history of the Palestinian people. More than 700,000 Palestinians became refugees as they were expelled from their homes and their villages and cities were destroyed. But the Nakba is more than just one moment in time, the pain continues today as the occupation continues. Acknowledging and honoring this pain the only path to forging a peaceful future with true equality, freedom and dignity for all.

Register for this free event here.

A Middle Eastern Food Roundtable, with TMR Writers, Sunday, May 8, 1 PM Eastern
2022-05-08 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
Register Here.

The Markaz Review presents a roundtable conversation on Middle Eastern cuisine among contributors to the TMR • 20 FOOD issue, featuring personal stories and family recipes. This webinar is free to the public. Meet TMR writer-contributors this Sunday, May 8, at 1 pm Eastern (18:00 UK/19:00 CET).
Register Here.

Gaza Poet Mosab Abu Toha, in conversation with Mary Karr
2022-05-07 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online
Register Here (Free Event)

Takes place at 12 noon Pacific/3 pm Eastern/20:00 UK/21:00 CET

The Markaz Review and City Lights in conjunction with the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance celebrate the publication of Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, by Mosab Abu Toha, published by City Lights Books.
This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a device that is capable of accessing the Internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.

Poets Mosab abu Toha and Mary Karr.
“Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishingly gifted young poet from Gaza, almost a seer with his eloquent lyrical vernacular … His poems break my heart and awaken it, at the same time. I feel I have been waiting for his work all my life.”–Naomi Shihab Nye

In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity.
These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. Children are born, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins as Palestinians go on about their lives, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive.

Order a copy.
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. A graduate in English language teaching and literature, he taught English at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University; a Visiting Librarian at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and a Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fellow in the Harvard Divinity School. In 2020, Abu Toha gave talks and readings at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the University of Arizona. He also spoke at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia in January 2020. In October 2021, University of Notre Dame’s Literatures, Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance lecture series hosted Abu Toha to speak about his poetry and work in Gaza. Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have appeared in The Nation, Arrowsmith Press, and Literary Hub. His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation’s website, in Poetry Magazine, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, and other journals.
Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed and New York Times best-selling memoirs The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit, as well as The Art of Memoir, and five poetry collections, most recently Tropic of Squalor. Karr is also a songwriter, having collaborated with Rodney Crowell, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams and others on a country album called KIN.
The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) works to protect the rights and improve the lives of children in the Middle East through aid, empowerment and education. In the Middle East, MECA provides humanitarian aid, partners with community organizations to run projects for children, and supports income-generation projects. In the US and internationally, MECA raises awareness about the lives of children in the region and encourages meaningful action.To learn more visit them at : https://www.mecaforpeace.org
This event has been made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.
Register Here (Free Event)

Novelist Rabih Alameddine in conversation with Dima Alzayat | The Markaz Review
2022-05-06 14:00 - 15:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
This online event is free to the public. RSVPs are required. REGISTER HERE.

Rabih Alameddine.
Rabih Alameddine, winner of the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for his latest novel, The Wrong End of the Telescope, will be in conversation with short story author Dima Alzayat (Alligator & Other Stories) for The Markaz Review, on Friday, May 6, 2 pm ET (19:00 UK). Zoom participants will be able to jot down their questions in the chat for Alameddine and Alzayat.
In her TMR review of The Wrong End of the Telescope, Dima Alzayat points out that, “Alameddine plunges headfirst into important questions about empathy and fiction, armed with his signature sharp sarcasm and acerbic humor. ‘Every idiot thinks they’re a writer, they’re not;’ he proclaims in the book’s opening pages. ‘Every dullard thinks they have a tale to tell; they don’t.’ Alameddine is not taking aim at literature he simply dislikes or disagrees with — his is a much more interesting pursuit: What is the point of fiction? What does it do? What can it yield? These queries lie at the heart of his novel, one that takes as its subject the plight of refugees crossing the Mediterranean and those who wait to receive them on the other side.”
Order a copy.
Born in Amman, Jordan, Lebanese American writer and painter Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels An Unnecessary Woman; I, the Divine; Koolaids; The Hakawati; and the story collection, The Perv. In 2019, he won the Dos Passos Prize.
Dima Alzayat was born in Damascus, grew up in San Jose, California and lives in Manchester, in the UK. She studied fiction writing and has won numerous awards. In her TMR review of Alzayat’s Alligator & Other Stories, Malu Halasa suggested that her story collection “starts a different conversation about Arab belonging and assimilation in America, through the prism of Syrian experience. An astute observer of worlds both old and new, Alzayat listened hard to her elders, recognized inconsistencies and digs deep into uncomfortable no-go areas. She is a formidable new voice in understanding the complexities of race and identity.”

This online event is free to the public. RSVPs are required. REGISTER HERE.

Hisham Bustani's "The Monotonous Chaos of Existence" Bookgroup
2022-04-24 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Free Event / 1 pm Eastern/18:00 UK/19:00 CET
TMR invites you to participate in our monthly bookgroup conversation, in which authors and/or translators join during the second half of the hour. On Sunday, April 24th, writer Hisham Bustani and translator Maia Tabet will join at 1:30 pm Eastern.
The Monotonous Chaos of Existence, stories by Hisham Bustani

HIsham Bustani
Order a copy.
The stories within Hisham Bustani’s The Monotonous Chaos of Existence explore the turbulent transformation in contemporary Arab societies. With a deft and poetic touch, Bustani examines the interpersonal with a global lens, connects the seemingly contradictory, and delves into the ways that international conflict can tear open the individuals that populate his world—all while pushing the narrative form into new and unexpected terrain.
“These stories recall the rhythms of poetry, offer up the intimacy of memoir, and often feel more like films than fiction. The Monotonous Chaos of Existence got me thinking about similarly semi-surreal and ecstatic truth tellers Denis Johnson and Chester Himes, a comparison that will have to do for now because I’m still dizzy and not exactly thinking straight after reading these interrogations of the cruelty and absurdity of occupation and so-called post-colonialism. Clear-eyed personal/political storytelling that is exciting, askew, and challenging.”
—Brandon Soderberg, coauthor, I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad

To receive the Zoom link for this free online event, simply email books@themarkaz.org.

AZAD, an immersive theatrical performance in Los Angeles for Armenian and Syrian culture
2022-04-21 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Pico, 10508 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90064, United States
This is a ticketed event (Apr 21, 22, 23), RSVP HERE.

In honor and in advance of the annual Armenian commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, on April 24th, 2022, The Markaz Review recommends this Los Angeles theatre event, with five performances on Apr 21, 22 & 23.
A woman’s magical, healing journey from the Armenian Genocide to the Syrian war, weaving Karagöz puppetry, Hakawati storytelling and more.

AZAD ( “Free” in Armenian) is a kaleidoscopic story within a story within a story, centered around a storyteller’s discovery of her great-great grandfather’s shadow puppets in Aleppo…

In the winter of 2019, an Armenian artist returned to her Aleppan family home for the first time since the Syrian war. There, in the attic, she found her great-grandfather’s Karagöz shadow puppets, the magical extension of his voice as a citizen of the Ottoman Empire. When the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide befell the community, he escaped his home with his wife, seven children and his trunk full of his beloved puppets to re-build a life in Aleppo.
Sona Tatoyan
AZAD is an immersive, magical, theatrical experience. It weaves together the classical art of oral Middle Eastern storytelling with centuries old Anatolian Karagöz shadow puppets and the magic of cinema.
The performance transports the audience to a Middle Eastern coffee shop with its tastes and smells, where for centuries storytellers (Hakawatis) and Karagöz (a form of pre-cinema playing with shadow and light) shadow puppeteers performed the tales from 1001 Nights. Projections and lighting transform this coffee shop from Ottoman times to modern pre-civil war Aleppo. Transcendent, classical music seamlessly blends with modern surround electronic soundscapes. The result: a multi-sensorial, time traveling exploration of healing. Audiences see, hear, smell and taste what it was like to be in Aleppo through various times in the city’s history – connecting us all to the legacy of a family of storytellers transmuting trauma into art.
Sona Tatoyan a first generation Syrian-Armenian-American actor/writer/producer with bases in Aleppo, Syria; Berlin, Germany; LA, California and Yerevan, Armenia. As an actress, stage credits include world premieres at Yale Repertory Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, The American Conservatory Theatre and others. She starred in The Journey, the first American independent film shot in Armenia (winner, Audience Award Milan Film Festival, 2002). As a writer her first feature film script, The First Full Moon, was a 2011 Sundance/RAWI Screenwriters Lab participant and 2012 Dubai Film Connection/Festival Project. Ms. Tatoyan co-founded Hakawati, a nonprofit storytelling vehicle focusing on elevating the voices of frontline and marginalized communities.

This is a ticketed event (three dates), RSVP HERE.
