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

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

Read EMISSARIES Short Stories, Meet Author Youssef Rakha, July 2, 1 pm EST
2023-07-02 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
RSVP here
Emissaries is the new collection of short stories by renowned Egyptian author Youssef Rakha. Many of the stories have appeared previously in journals from the UK, US and the Middle East region. In these Cairo-focused stories written at the height of the Arab Spring, in its wake and its ruins, the reader is led by a colorful cast of characters through a hypnagogic urbanscape pulsating with the specters of post-political Islam and failed revolution.
Writes TMR reviewer Zein El-Amine, “I have not read many works by Arab American writers writing in English, but Rakha’s collection is original, irreverent, and provocative. What engages one most in reading his stories is the language he employs. Even though he is referencing Western pop culture and writers throughout the book, his voice is original. In wielding such prose, Rakha is a pied piper leading the reader into his rabbit holes. The consistency in that voice and the recurring motifs in the book make for a solid read.” Read the review. Get the audio book. Print.
We will meet to discuss these stories on Sunday, July 2nd, at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET. To attend, email books@themarkaz.org.
RSVP here

A Stranger in Baghdad with Elizabeth Loudon
2023-08-27 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
RSVP here.

TMR’s August 2023 book club selection is the novel is A Stranger in Baghdad by Elizabeth Loudon

In beautifully rendered prose, a mother and a daughter struggle as outsiders in Baghdad and London in this intergenerational drama set against a background of political tension and intrigue
“Who would be charmed by tales of life in the beautiful old house on the banks of the Tigris—looted now no doubt, its shutters torn and the courtyard strewn with mattresses?”
One night in 2003, Anglo-Iraqi psychiatrist Mona Haddad has a surprise visitor to her London office, an old acquaintance Duncan Claybourne. But why has he come? Will his confession finally lay bare what happened to her family before they escaped Iraq?
Their stories begin in 1937, when Mona’s mother Diane, a lively Englishwoman newly married to Ibrahim, an ambitious Iraqi doctor, meets Duncan by chance. Diane is working as a nanny for the Iraqi royal family. Duncan is a young British Embassy officer in Baghdad. When the king dies in a mysterious accident, Ibrahim and his family suspect Diane of colluding with Duncan and the British.
Summoning up the vanished world of mid-twentieth-century Baghdad, Elizabeth Loudon’s richly evocative story of one family calls into question British attitudes and policies in Iraq and offers up a penetrating reflection on cross-cultural marriage and the lives of women caught between different worlds.
To read an excerpt, click here.
We’ll meet to talk about the book on the last Sunday in August, the 27th, at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET.

RSVP here.

19/09, Paris—Olivier Gloag, "Oublier Camus" au CAREP
2023-09-19 18:30 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
Cette conférence-dédicace est organisée en partenariat avec The Markaz Review et Orient XXI. Elle se tiendra au CAREP Paris le 19 septembre 2023 à 18h30. Il est également possible de la suivre à distance. RSVP pour le Zoom/register here to participate online.
Démystifier Albert Camus
Des programmes scolaires aux discours politiques, dans les médias et les conversations mondaines, Camus est partout le parangon d’un humanisme abstrait qui a ceci de commode – et de suspect – qu’il plait à droite comme à gauche. Peu de chercheurs se sont penchés sur les contradictions du personnage comme le fait Olivier Gloag dans son ouvrage Oublier Camus (La Fabrique, sept. 2023), à partir d’une relecture de Camus dans le texte – contradictions qui constituent pourtant la force motrice de l’œuvre camusienne, une clé de son « style », et expliquent sa popularité actuelle.
Olivier Gloag rappelle l’attachement viscéral de Camus au colonialisme et au mode de vie des colons qui traverse ses trois romans majeurs, L’Étranger, La Peste et Le Premier Homme. Il examine ses engagements politiques à la lumière de sa brouille avec Sartre : la tension entre révolte et révolution, son recours à l’absurde comme refus du cours de l’Histoire, son anticommunisme et son déni de la lutte des peuples colonisés. Il se penche enfin sur les récupérations de Camus : l’auteur le plus populaire en France et le Français le plus lu dans le monde est devenu un enjeu politique et idéologique. L’invocation d’un Camus mythifié projette un reflet flatteur mais falsificateur de l’histoire coloniale. C’est ce Camus-là qu’il faut oublier pour reconnaître les déchirements d’un écrivain tout aussi passionnément attaché aux acquis sociaux du Front populaire qu’à la présence française en Algérie.

Olivier Gloag

Olivier Gloag est maître de conférences à l’université de Caroline du Nord (UNC) à Asheville. Ses recherches portent notamment sur les représentations coloniales dans la littérature hexagonale, l’histoire culturelle et littéraire de la France au XXe siècle. Il est l’auteur de Albert Camus, A Very Short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020). Son ouvrage Oublier Camus, paraît aux éditions de La Fabrique en septembre 2023.

Afifa Bererhi
Professeure émérite de littérature française et francophone, Afifa Bererhi a enseigné à l’université Benyoucef Benkhedda d’Alger dont elle a dirigé le département de français.
Récipiendaire du Doctorat honoris causa de l’université de Valenciennes où elle a été fortement impliquée dans l’école-doctorale algéro-française. Parmi ses publications : Algérie, ses langues, ses lettres et ses histoires ; L’autobiographie en situation d’interculturalité ; Camus et les Lettres Algériennes, l’espace de l’interdiscours.

Sarra Grira

Modératrice de la conférence.
Journaliste, rédactrice-en-chef d’Orient XXI.

9/24—Read River Spirit, Meet Author Leila Aboulela
2023-09-24 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
RSVP here.

The Markaz Book Club novel for September 2023 is River Spirit by Leila Aboulela
(from a rave review in the New York Times) “In 19th-century Sudan, with the Ottoman Empire fading and Britain gaining influence in the region, a religious leader proclaims himself the Mahdi, or the redeemer. He aims to correct the wrongs — excessive taxation, for one — of the foreign rulers. But as the revolution gains strength, and the Mahdi collects followers, his greed for power tarnishes the movement’s ideological purity. Leila Aboulela’s dazzling new novel, River Spirit, follows the course of that revolution as it turns into a new instrument of oppression.”
River Spirit is the unforgettable story of a people who, against the odds and for a brief time, gained independence from foreign rule. This is a powerful tale of corruption and unshakeable devotion – to a cause, to one’s faith and to the people who become family.
We’ll meet to talk about the book on the last Sunday in Sept., the 24th, at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET. Author Leila Aboulela will be joining us.
RSVP here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leila Aboulela is the first-ever winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. She is the author of six novels — Bird Summons; The Kindness of Enemies; The Translator, a New York Times 100 Notable Books of the year; Minaret; Lyrics Alley, Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards; and River Spirit, published by Saqi Books in March 2023. Her short story collection Elsewhere, Home, won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Her work has been translated into 15 languages and she’s been nominated three times for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction). Leila was born in Cairo, grew up in Khartoum and moved in her mid-twenties to Scotland where she now lives.

26 sept, Montpellier— Rencontre Littéraire, "Oublier Camus" avec Olivier Gloag
2023-09-26 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
Rencontre avec Olivier Gloag, auteur franco-américain; maître de conférence à l’université de Caroline du Nord (UNC).
Modération de Pierre Daum, reporter au Monde Diplomatique, et auteur d’ouvrages sur le passé colonial de la France.
mardi, 26 septembre, 19h au Librairie Le Grain des mots, 15 Bd du Jeu de Paume, 34000 Montpellier. Entrée libre.

Des programmes scolaires aux discours politiques, dans les médias et les conversations mondaines, Camus est partout le parangon d’un humanisme abstrait qui a ceci de commode – et de suspect – qu’il plait à droite comme à gauche. Peu de chercheurs se sont penchés sur les contradictions du personnage comme le fait Olivier Gloag dans son ouvrage Oublier Camus (La Fabrique, sept. 2023), à partir d’une relecture de Camus dans le texte – contradictions qui constituent pourtant la force motrice de l’œuvre camusienne, une clé de son « style », et expliquent sa popularité actuelle.
Olivier Gloag rappelle l’attachement viscéral de Camus au colonialisme et au mode de vie des colons qui traverse ses trois romans majeurs, L’Étranger, La Peste et Le Premier Homme. Il examine ses engagements politiques à la lumière de sa brouille avec Sartre : la tension entre révolte et révolution, son recours à l’absurde comme refus du cours de l’Histoire, son anticommunisme et son déni de la lutte des peuples colonisés. Il se penche enfin sur les récupérations de Camus : l’auteur le plus populaire en France et le Français le plus lu dans le monde est devenu un enjeu politique et idéologique. L’invocation d’un Camus mythifié projette un reflet flatteur mais falsificateur de l’histoire coloniale. C’est ce Camus-là qu’il faut oublier pour reconnaître les déchirements d’un écrivain tout aussi passionnément attaché aux acquis sociaux du Front populaire qu’à la présence française en Algérie.

TMR Book Club Discusses Khaled Khalifa's "No One Prayed Over Their Graves"
2023-10-29 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Online
RSVP here.
This month, the TMR Book Club is reading and discussing No One Prayed Over Their Graves by Khaled Khalifa.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED FICTION

“Gorgeous . . . Lush, elegiac [and] Márquezian . . . A novel of abundance and generosity.” —Sarah Cypher, The Washington Post

“Richly embroidered . . . [Khalifa’s] galloping narration restores life and soul to a city that has become a byword for devastation.” —The Economist

From the National Book Award finalist Khaled Khalifa, the story of two friends whose lives are altered by a flood that devastates their Syrian village.

On a December morning in 1907, two close friends, Hanna and Zakariya, return to their village near Aleppo after a night of drunken carousing in the city, only to discover that there has been a massive flood. Their neighbors, families, children—nearly all of them are dead. Their homes, shops, and places of worship are leveled. Their lives will never be the same.
Hanna was once a wealthy libertine, a landowner who built a famed citadel devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and excess. But with the loss of his home, wife, and community, he transforms, becoming an ascetic mystic obsessed with death and the meaning of life. In No One Prayed Over Their Graves, we follow Hanna’s life before and after the flood, tracing friendships, loves and lusts, family and business, until he is just one thread in the rich tapestry of Aleppo.

Khaled Khalifa weaves a sweeping tale of life and death in the hubbub of Aleppine society at the turn of the twentieth century. No One Prayed Over Their Graves is a portrait of a people on the verge of great change—from provincial villages to the burgeoning modernity of the city, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews live and work together, united in their love for Aleppo and their dreams for the future.
Published by MacMillan in the US and Faber in the UK. We meet to discuss the book on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 2 pm Eastern/19:00 CET. This event has been organized in collaboration with Afikra.
RSVP here.

TMR 35 Public Intellectual Roundtable Discussion
2023-11-01 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Online
RSVP here.
On November 1st, at 6pm CET (1pm EST/5pm UK/9pm Abu Dhabi), The Markaz Review presents a roundtable conversation, moderated by TMR Senior Editor Lina Mounzer, with writers Hisham Bustani and Moustafa Bayoumi, on public intellectuals and their engagement with politics, justice and conflict in these catastrophic times.
This online roundtable is open to all, free to the public; donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here.

Avi Shlaim on His Memoir Three Worlds and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
2023-11-14 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here.
Respected historian at Oxford and author Avi Shlaim (The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World) was born in Iraq but raised and came of age in Israel. In his new memoir Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, he describes the bygone world of Arab Jews, reviews the narrative of Zionism and its call to “rescue” eastern Jews from the Middle East, and critiques many of the received ideas about Jews and Arabs.
Journalist Layla Maghribi interviews Avi Shlaim live on November 14 at 7pm CET/ 6pm UK/ 1pm EST. They will discuss Three Worlds, as well as the present war on Gaza and the implications of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This online event is open to all and free to the public; donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here.

About the speakers
Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad and grew up in Israel. As one of the “New Historians” in Israel, he was part of a group that reassessed the history of the country and often shined a light on the repression of the Palestinians. He is now a Professor of International Relations at St Antony’s College, Oxford. His previous books include the critically acclaimed The Iron Wall and he writes regularly for the Guardian, Middle East Eye and other outlets.
Layla Maghribi is a British Arab journalist, currently based in the UK after several years in the Middle East working for international media outlets, including Reuters and CNN International. Raised in England, Layla has lived in Italy, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE, and has a special interest in social issues affecting Arabic-speaking communities, particularly in relation to culture, immigration and mental health. She is currently the host of Third Culture Therapy, a podcast that explores mental wellbeing from a cultural perspective and is writing her first non-fiction book. You can read more of her work here or on Twitter @layla_maghribi.

More about this event
The guest for this upcoming event is Baghdad-born British-Israeli historian, Avi Shlaim and will be guest hosted by writer and podcaster, Layla Maghribi. Shlaim will be discussing his latest book, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, and how many of the revelatory themes are relevant to the current war on Gaza.
Evocatively recollecting a bygone era in Baghdad before the 1950s, when some 130,000 Jews lived almost entirely harmoniously alongside their Muslim compatriots, Shlaim’s book was already an intriguing read when it came out earlier this spring. Now, to the backdrop of unremitting violence and upheaval in Israel / Palestine, I reread it with a mixture of searing lament for a lost era and a much-needed inspiration for a possibly peaceful future.
Besides debunking the Zionist-propagated myth that Arabs and Jews have always hated each other, Shlaim’s book lays bare other controversies. Years of research and archival work led him to conclude that it was Israeli-backed militants who were behind many of the bombings targeting Jews in Iraq in the 1950s and not Arab-Iraqis, as was claimed. Israel’s terrorising actions against Iraqi-Jews were inflicted in a bid to encourage massive migration to Israel with the promise that they would be safer, and more prosperous, in country solely for Jews. Shlaim’s revelations shine a painful spotlight on the traumatisation of innocent civilians for political gains as well as the weaponization of antisemitism, issues that remain painfully weighty today.
The memoir is a coming-of-age story between multiple worlds – the Arab, Jewish, Israeli and British. Tracing his early years in Baghdad, where in 1945 Shlaim was born the youngest child and only son of a prosperous Jewish businessman and notable member of Iraqi of community, his happy childhood is upended with the sudden fleeing of his family to Israel when he was five years old.
In Israel, the “promised land” failed to deliver any tangible gains for the Shlaim family who had fallen steeply in economic and social status following their reluctant exile. After centuries of living in and among Arabs, and being an indelible part of the culture, the Shlaim family, like many Arab-Jews of that era, were tragically uprooted from their lives and communities for the sake of an ideology they were reluctantly forced to adopt. Besides not subscribing to the narrowly exclusive Zionist identity, the discrimination they faced for being Arab Jews, or Mizrahim as they are referred to in Israel, compounded his family’s sense of alienation. Robbed of their belonging in Iraq and rejected by their community in Israel, Shlaim recounts with poignant clarity the pains of a cohort of Zionism’s oft-ignored victims.

RSVP here.

TMR Book Club Discusses "Palestine +100: stories from a century after the Nakba" with Special Guests
2023-11-26 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
Palestine + 100: stories from a century after the Nakba poses a question to 12 Palestinian writers: what might your country look like in the year 2048 — a century after the tragedies and trauma of what has come to be called the Nakba. How might this event — which, in 1948, saw the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes — reach across a century of occupation, oppression, and political isolation, to shape the country and its people? Will a lasting peace finally have been reached, or will future technology only amplify the suffering and mistreatment of Palestinians?
Covering a range of approaches — from sci-fi noir, to nightmarish dystopia, to high-tech farce — these stories use the blank canvas of the future to reimagine the Palestinian experience today. Along the way, we encounter drone swarms, digital uprisings, time-bending VR, peace treaties that span parallel universes, and even a Palestinian superhero, in probably the first anthology of science fiction from Palestine ever.
Translated from the Arabic by Raph Cormack, Mohamed Ghalaieny, Andrew Leber, Thoraya El-Rayyes, Yasmine Seale and Jonathan Wright. Published by Comma Press in the UK.
We will meet to discuss the book with host Rana Asfour and special guest writers Basma Ghalayini and Selma Dabbagh on Sunday, Nov. 26 at 1pm EST/ 7pm EST/ 6pm UK.
RSVP here

Aliyeh Ataei, Écrivaine Afghane-Iranienne, Présente Son Livre d'Essais au Grain des Mots
2023-12-07 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris)
The Markaz Review et le Grain des Mots organisent une rencontre littéraire le 7 décembre avec
ALIYEH ATAEI pour son livre LA FRONTIÈRE DES OUBLIÉS aux éditions Gallimard.

Rendez-vous à la librairie indépendante de Montpellier, le Grain des Mots, le jeudi 7 décembre à 19:00
15 Bd du Jeu de Paume, 34000 Montpellier

La frontière des oubliés
[Koorsorkhi]

Traduction du persan par Sabrina Nouri –Préface d’Atiq Rahimi
Collection Du monde entier, Gallimard

Neuf récits composent La frontière des oubliés et retracent le parcours de l’écrivaine, depuis sa fuite, enfant, de la frontière afghane pour se bâtir une vie à Téhéran. Dans chacune de ces vignettes de vie qui se font écho, elle brosse le portrait de ses compatriotes exilés, des « frontaliers », souvent des femmes, qui portent tous des traces de la guerre, des plaies profondes marquées par des balles invisibles. À chaque rencontre, elle s’interroge sur la violence, l’exil et l’identité. En s’imprégnant de son propre vécu, Aliyeh Ataei embrasse ici plus largement le sort de tous ceux qui ont hérité des « chromosomes-douleurs », se faisant l’écho de leurs voix si peu audibles.

La frontière des oubliés nous fait découvrir une nouvelle plume puissante venue d’Iran. De son style clair et tranchant, Aliyeh Ataei dévoile des vérités qui secouent, et bouleversent.

Avec la modération de Jahangir Farazmand (événement en persan et français). Professeur d’anglais à l’Université de Montpellier, Jahangir Farazmand a passé les premières onze années de sa vie à Téhéran ; il a quitté l’Iran trois mois avant la révolution islamique pour venir en France, sans se douter que son voyage allait durer quatre décennies.

TMR Book Club Discusses "Traces of Enayat" with Iman Mersal
2024-01-28 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
Cairo, 1963: Enayat al-Zayyat’s suicide becomes a byword for talent tragically cut down, even as Love and Silence, her only novel, languishes unpublished. Four years after al-Zayyat’s death, the novel will be brought out, adapted for film and radio, praised, and then, cursorily, forgotten. For the next three decades it’s as if al-Zayyat never existed.
Yet when poet Iman Mersal stumbles across Love and Silence in the nineties, she is immediately hooked. Who was Enayat? Did the thought of her novel’s rejection really lead to her suicide? Where did this startling voice come from? And why did Love and Silence disappear from literary history? To answer these questions, Mersal traces Enayat’s life, interviews family members and friends, reconstructs the afterlife of Enayat in the media, and tracks down the flats, schools, archaeological institutes, and sanatoriums among which Enayat divided her days. Touching on everything from dubious antidepressants to domestic abuse and divorce law, from rubbish-strewn squats in the City of the Dead to the glamour of golden-age Egyptian cinema, this wide-ranging, unclassifiable masterpiece gives us a remarkable portrait of a woman artist striving to live on her own terms. Published by And Other Stories in the UK.
We will meet to discuss the book with the author on Sunday, Jan. 28 at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET.
RSVP here

TMR Conversations: Anna Lekas Miller on "Love Across Borders" with Lina Mounzer
2024-02-15 17:30 - 18:30 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
When Anna Lekas Miller met and fell in love with Salem Rizk in Istanbul, she had no idea that the obstacles they would have to overcome in order to build a life together would include a Muslim Ban and the UK Home Office. The fellow journalists were both in Istanbul covering the fallout from the Syrian war and the ISIS occupation. But when a deportation order for Rizk was issued, the couple was forced to contend with all the heretofore invisible structural inequalities between them, a result of the lopsided choices afforded to them by their respective passports (American; Syrian).
Lekas Miller’s book, Love Across Borders, is at once a recounting of the couple’s efforts to find a place that would allow both of them to settle down long-term without fear of deportation, as well as an overview of the borders and laws that have come to shape love stories such as theirs. On the way, she speaks to a number of other couples—in the US, Europe, and Lebanon—about their struggles (some truly harrowing) to build a life together in a world where your worth as a human being is often assessed in relation to your passport.
For TMR’s February issue, appropriately entitled LSD (for Love, Sex, Desire), Anna Lekas Miller will be in discussion with writer and TMR Senior Editor Lina Mounzer. The discussion, much to Lekas Miller’s chagrin, is scheduled for February 15 – as close to Valentine’s Day as possible without foiling anyone’s plans for the big day.
“Honestly, I hate Valentine’s Day,” she confided, “but because of this book I’m forever associated with it, for better or for worse.”
This led to a brainwave on Mounzer’s behalf, who will be steering the discussion through the book and the process of writing it, but will also put Lekas Miller in the hot seat with a series of fun and racy questions about all things love and romance. Audience members are also invited to ask questions pertaining to both facets of the book, which is at once a serious political manifesto and a series of heart-pounding romantic tales. And given that it’s around Valentine’s Day, if someone is looking for romantic advice, perhaps the discussants might also be persuaded to weigh in…Join us on February 15, 2024 at 5:30pm CET/ 4:30pm UK/ 11:30am EST.
RSVP here
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speakers
Anna Lekas Miller is a writer and journalist who covers stories of the ways that conflict and migration shape the lives of people around the world. She has reported from Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, covering the Israeli occupation, the Syrian civil war and exodus to Europe, and the rise and fall of the Islamic State. Since moving to London, she has turned her attention to the rise of the far right in Europe and the United States, investigating immigration systems, white supremacist ideology, and the ways that people are standing up to them. She is most interested in stories of love and healing in an unpredictable and unstable world. Her journalism and essays have appeared in Vanity Fair, the Intercept, CNN, the New Humanitarian, The Markaz Review and New Lines.
Lina Mounzer is a Lebanese writer and translator. She has been a regular contributor to the New York Times and her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Freeman’s, Washington Post, and The Baffler, as well as in the anthologies Tales of Two Planets (Penguin 2020), and Best American Essays 2022 (Harper Collins 2022). She is a senior editor at The Markaz Review.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This online event is open to all and free to the public; donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here

TMR Conversations: Resistance in the Face of Annihilation
2024-02-22 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
Layla Maghribi interviews Palestinian filmmakers Hind Shoufani and Saeed Taji Farouky on activism and art in Palestinian filmmaking today, and on the role of Palestinian artists in the resistance movement, as well as how to push back against anti-Arab and Palestinian cancellation and censorship in today’s super-charged media landscape.
Layla will interview Hind and Saeed live on February 22nd at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET/ 6pm UK. This online event is open to all and free to the public; donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speakers
Layla Maghribi is a British Arab journalist, currently based in the UK after several years in the Middle East working for international media outlets, including Reuters and CNN International. Raised in England, Layla has lived in Italy, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE, and has a special interest in social issues affecting Arabic-speaking communities, particularly in relation to culture, immigration and mental health. She is a correspondent with The National News based in London. You can read more of her work here or on Twitter @layla_maghribi.
Hind Shoufani is has been a filmmaker, writer and poet for the past 25 years. She recently won a BAFTA for the Oscar-nominated short film “The Present,” and her latest documentary, Heavy Metal, premiered at the Tribeca Film
Festival in 2023. Her first feature film Trip Along Exodus screened in over 30 countries. She is a Fulbright scholar from Jordan, with an MFA in film from The Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Hind has won awards for her personal and professional achievements, helmed commercial projects for corporate and NGO clients, and influenced the literary cultural scene in the SWANA region through events, mentorship & publications. She has published creative essays, prose and poetry in numerous international journals, magazines and anthologies.
Saeed Taji Farouky is a Palestinian-Egyptian-British filmmaker, educator, and curator. His documentary A Thousand Fires won the Marco Zucchi award for most innovative documentary in the Directors Fortnight of the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. A previous documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year premiered at the Berlinale 2015 and won the Audience Choice Panorama Award and the Amnesty Human Rights Award. He runs the Radical Film School in London, a free film course for participants from backgrounds underrepresented in the film industry.
RSVP here

TMR Book Club Discusses "Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art from the Women’s Protest in Iran" with editor Malu Halasa
2024-02-25 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
We are on the one-year anniversary of the women’s freedom marches in Iran.
Jina Mahsa Amini’s death at the hands of Iran’s Morality Police on 16th of September, 2022 sparked widespread protests across the country. Women took to the streets, uncovering their hair, burning headscarves and chanting “Woman Life Freedom’ — ‘Zan Zendegi Azadi” in Persian and “Jin Jîyan Azadî” in Kurdish — in mass demonstrations. An explosion of creative resistance followed as art and photography shared online went viral and people around the world saw what was really going on in Iran.
Woman Life Freedom captures this historic moment in artwork and first-person accounts. This striking collection goes behind the scenes at forbidden fashion shows; records the sound of dissent in Iran where it is illegal for women to sing unaccompanied in public; and walks the streets of Tehran with ‘The Smarties’ — Gen Z women who colour and show their hair in defiance of the authorities, despite the potentially devastating consequences. Extolling the power of art, writing and body politics — both female and queer — this collection is a universal rallying call and a celebration of the women the regime has tried and failed to silence.
Published by Saqi Books, London. We meet the editor, Malu Halasa, to talk about the book online, on Sunday, Feb. 25 at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET.
RSVP here

TMR Conversations: Rula Jebreal on the Present Moment
2024-03-07 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
Join us on March 7th at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET/ 6pm UK for an interview organized by TMR’s Editor-in-Chief Jordan Elgrably with Rula Jebreal about what it means to be a Palestinian writer in an era when Palestinian writers and journalists are considered by Israel to be enemies of the state. Jebreal will address the reality in Gaza and the West Bank, and where we go from here.
This online event is free and open to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speaker
Rula Jebreal is an award-winning journalist, author, and foreign policy analyst renowned for her groundbreaking work in Europe, the United States, and across the Middle East. Jebreal’s diverse body of work reflects her life-long engagement with topics that have directly impacted her life, both personally and professionally, from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the war on terror, and global far right movements rising throughout Europe and the United States. Jebreal has also grappled with the the war on truth, propaganda and conspiracy theories, and in fact for the past five years has been teaching a course at the University of Miami, entitled “Persuasion, Propaganda, and Genocide.” She is an international bestselling author, whose novel Miral, among other works, has been translated into more than 14 languages. Jebreal is a Visiting Professor at the University of Miami, and serves on the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, a body relaunched in 2018 by French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as the Advisory Board of The U.S./Middle East Project. She is fluent in Italian, English, Hebrew, and Arabic.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
RSVP here

TMR 39 • BURN IT ALL DOWN Roundtable Discussion
2024-03-21 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
The Markaz Review presents a conversation around TMR 39’s theme, BURN IT ALL DOWN, in which senior editor Lina Mounzer talks to three of the issue’s contributors on their essays.
In her editorial, “Why Burn It All Down?”, Mounzer quoted the poetry of John Donne and suggested that the Gaza genocide represents “a collective diminishment” of us all — westerners and easterners alike, while in her essay “The Time of Monsters,” Layla AlAmmar took inspiration from several Arab poets, including Khalil Gibran, as well as writers Walter Benjamin and Antonio Gramsci, and argued that Hamas was trying “to stop the Nakba.” In “Al-Thakla—Arabic as the Original Mourner,” Abdelrahman ElGendy struggles with wishing to express himself in Arabic while admitting that English holds more currency; he argues that “English does not give me a seat at the table [but] offers me the chance to point at the table.” ElGendy asks: “How do you hold your grief in a language that’s been its main perpetrator?” And Michelle Eid in her essay “Israel’s Environmental and Economic War on Lebanon” suggests that Israel isn’t only at war with the Palestinians, but perhaps the entire region. What needs to be dismantled or destroyed before a new world can be ushered in? This conversation gives the microphone to a younger Arab generation who, though perfectly fluent in English, takes issue with western hegemonic discourse.
This roundtable discussion will take place online on March 21st at 2pm EST/ 7pm CET/ 6pm UK. This event is open and free to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speakers:
LINA MOUNZER is a Lebanese writer and translator. She has been a regular contributor to the New York Times and her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Freeman’s, Washington Post, and The Baffler, as well as in the anthologies Tales of Two Planets (Penguin 2020), and Best American Essays 2022 (Harper Collins 2022). She is a senior editor at The Markaz Review.
Read her editorial in our March issue, TMR 39 • BURN IT ALL DOWN: Why “Burn it All Down”?
LAYLA ALAMMAR is a writer and academic from Kuwait. She earned a PhD in Arab women’s fiction and literary trauma theory, and she has an MSc in Creative Writing. Her debut novel, The Pact We Made (2019), was longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel, Silence is a Sense (2021), was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She has written for The Guardian, LitHub, the Times Literary Supplement, ArabLit Quarterly, The New Arab, GQ Middle East, and NewLines Magazine.
Read her essay in our March issue, TMR 39 • BURN IT ALL DOWN: The Time of Monsters
ABDELRAHMAN ELGENDY is a Dietrich fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Nonfiction Writing MFA, and a Heinz fellow at Pitt’s Global Studies Center. His work has received awards or fellowships from Logan Nonfiction Program, Tin House Workshop, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He was a finalist for the 2021 and 2023 Margolis Award for Social Justice Journalism.
Read his centerpiece essay in our March issue, TMR 39 • BURN IT ALL DOWN: Al-Thakla—Arabic as the Original Mourner
MICHELLE EID is a researcher, consultant, and editor. Her areas of interest are socio-economic rights and development, focusing on agriculture and food sovereignty in the Levant. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Al Rawiya, a magazine focused on the Levant region.
Read her essay in our March issue, TMR 39 • BURN IT ALL DOWN: Israel’s Environmental and Economic Warfare on Lebanon

RSVP here

TMR Book Club Discusses "The Applicant" with author Nazli Koca
2024-03-31 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
RSVP here
Join TMR’s Book Club on March 31st at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET to discuss Nazli Koca’s “The Applicant” and meet the author.
About the book:
It’s 2017 and Leyla, a Turkish twenty-something living in Berlin is scrubbing toilets at an Alice in Wonderland-themed hostel after failing her thesis, losing her student visa, and suing her German university in a Kafkaesque attempt to reverse her failure.
Increasingly distant from what used to be at arm’s reach—writerly ambitions, tight knit friendships, a place to call home—Leyla attempts to find solace in the techno beats of Berlin’s nightlife, with little success. Right as the clock winds down on the hold on her visa, Leyla meets a conservative Swedish tourist and—against her political convictions and better judgment—begins to fall in love, or something like it. Will she accept an IKEA life with the Volvo salesman and relinquish her creative dreams, or return to Turkey to her mother and sister, codependent and enmeshed, her father’s ghost still haunting their lives?
While she waits for the German court’s verdict on her future, in the pages of her diary, Leyla begins to parse her unresolved past and untenable present. An indelible character at once precocious and imperiled, Leyla gives voice to the working-class and immigrant struggle to find safety, self-expression, and happiness. “The Applicant” is an extraordinary dissection of a liminal life between borders and identities, an original and darkly funny debut.
About the author:
Nazlı Koca is a writer and poet from Turkey who now lives in the US. Her writing has appeared in the Threepenny Review, Bookforum, and Second Factory, among other outlets. “The Applicant” is her first novel.
RSVP here

Table ronde autour du Numéro 40 PARIS du point de vue de ses créatifs issus des mondes arabes
2024-04-18 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
RSVP
Nous avons le plaisir de réunir 3 contributeurs de notre numéro de Paris pour discuter de leurs récits et portraits ainsi que de leur quotidien dans la capitale.
Nous vous donnons rendez-vous le jeudi 18 avril à 19h sur Zoom pour un moment d’échange et une invitation à revisiter ensemble la ville d’un point de vue oriental.
Ce numéro donne la parole à de nombreuses diasporas des mondes arabes dont l’histoire se mêle avec la ville des lumières.
Découvrez les écrits de nos trois invités:
Coline Houssais nous partage en exclusivité la genèse de son ouvrage Paris en lettres arabes qui sortira en mai prochain aux éditions Actes Sud.
Wanis El Kabbaj nous livre un témoignage intime de la vie de son père à Paris intitulé Heureux comme un Arabe à Paris.
Sasha Moujaes nous conte un portrait passionnant d’Ariella Aïsha Azoulay en lien avec son dernier livre La résistance des bijoux aux éditions Rot Bo Krik : Depuis Paris, défaire les géographies coloniales.
Retrouvez l’éditorial de notre rédacteur en chef Jordan Elgrably: Pourquoi Paris?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Coline Houssais
Née en Bretagne, Coline Houssais est une auteure, commissaire et chercheuse indépendante spécialisée dans l’histoire culturelle de l’immigration maghrébine et proche-orientale en Europe ainsi que dans les musiques du monde arabe. Diplômée de Sciences Po, l’Institut Français d’Études Arabes de Damas, l’INALCO et la London School of Economics, elle enseigne à Sciences Po. Fondatrice de l’Agence Ustaza à Paris, elle est également résidente de la Fondation Camargo (2020) et du programme de résidence IMéRA-MUCEM (2021). Ses dernières publications incluent une anthologie de la musique arabe (“Musiques du Monde Arabe, une anthologie en 100 artistes”, Le Mot et le Reste, 2020) et une participation aux deux premiers volumes d’Araborama (Institut du Monde Arabe/Seuil).

Sasha Moujaes
Originaire de Beyrouth, Sasha Moujaes est actuellement basée à Paris. Diplômée de Sciences Po et de l’Institut national des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), elle s’est spécialisée en sociologie politique avec un intérêt particulier pour les mondes arabo-méditerranéens. Après plusieurs années d’expérience dans le secteur culturel, elle s’engage aujourd’hui dans des projets associatifs au croisement des enjeux LBGTQI+ et de migration.

Wanis El Kabbaj
Né à Paris, et de nationalité franco-marocaine, Wanis El Kabbaj a 25 ans d’expérience en marketing sur 4 continents. Ayant grandi dans une famille férue de littérature et autour des livres d’Amine Maalouf, Taha Hussein, Naguib Mahfouz, il a développé une profonde appréciation pour les récits puissants, les phrases ciselées et les mots justes. C’est cet amour qui l’a poussé à donner deux TED Talks sur l’avenir des transports urbains et la relation ambivalente entre les nationalismes et la mondialisation qui ont recueilli 6 millions de vues dans le monde entier. Wanis est passionné de diversité culturelle, qu’il expérimente au quotidien dans sa propre famille et milite pour l’émergence de sociétés inclusives, humanistes et ouvertes.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
RSVP

TMR Book Club Discusses "A Nearby Country Called Love" with author Salar Abdoh
2024-04-24 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
RSVP here
Join the TMR Book Club on Wednesday, April 24th at 7pm CET/ 1pm EST/ 6pm UK to discuss “A Nearby Country Called Love” online with the author, Salar Abdoh.
About the book:
A sweeping, propulsive novel about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves, in which a man struggles to find his place in an Iran on the brink of combusting.
Amid the alleyways of the Zamzam neighborhood of Tehran, a woman lights herself on fire in a desperate act of defiance, setting off a chain reaction of violence and protest. Haunted by the woman’s death, Issa is forced to confront the contradictions of his own family history, throughout which his late brother Hashem, a prominent queer artist in Tehran’s underground, defied their father, a skilled martial artist bound to traditional notions of honor and masculinity.
Issa soon finds himself thrown into a circle of people living on the margins of society, negotiating a razor-like code of conduct that rewards loyalty and encourages aggression and intolerance in equal measure. As the city explodes around him, Issa realizes that it is the little acts of kindness that matter most, the everyday humanity of individuals finding love and doing right by one another.
Vibrant and evocative, intimate and intelligent, A Nearby Country Called Love is both a captivating window into contemporary Iran and a portrait of the parallel fates of a man and his country—a man who acknowledges the sullen and rumbling baggage of history but then chooses to step past its violent inheritance. Published by Viking.

About the author:
Salar Abdoh was born in Iran and splits his time between Tehran and New York City. He is the author of the novels Tehran at Twilight, The Poet Game, Opium, and Out of Mesopotamia and the editor of Tehran Noir. He teaches in the MFA program at the City College of New York.
RSVP here

U.S. Book Tour: "Stories from the Center of the World" with editor Jordan Elgrably and contributing writers
2024-05-09 19:00 - 2024-05-22 18:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
RSVP form below.
🗓️ WHAT: Book launch of new Middle East fiction anthology
🗣️ WHO: Editor Jordan Elgrably and various writers read from Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction
📍 WHERE: San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Washington DC, New York City. Each city has its own event link:

MAY 9 (In-person & online) San Francisco, City Lights, with Sarah AlKahly-Mills, 7 pm: https://citylights.com/events/jordan-elgrably/
MAY 10 (In-person) Berkeley, Books Inc with Sarah AlKahly-Mills, 6 pm: https://www.booksinc.net/event/jordan-elgrably-books-inc-berkeley
MAY 11 (In-person) Sacramento, Capital Books, 5 pm: https://capitalbooksonk.com/jordan-elgrably
MAY 16 (In-person) Los Angeles, Beyond Baroque with Reza Sixo Safai, 8 pm: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-launch-stories-from-the-center-of-the-world-new-middle east-fiction-tickets-880484200947?aff=oddtdtcreator
MAY 17 (In-person) Las Vegas with Ahmed Naji, The Writers Block, 7 pm: https://www.thewritersblock.org/events/upcoming-events
MAY 20 (In-person) Chicago at Northwestern University Sahar Mustafah, 4 pm: https://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/event/615352 & https://www.facebook.com/events/1656522558491274/
MAY 21 (In-person & online) Washington DC, Busboys and Poets, with Natasha Tynes, 6 pm: https://www.busboysandpoets.com/events/th-evt-38480538/
MAY 22 (In-person) NYC at the NYPL Tompkins Square, 6 pm with Omar El Akkad: https://arteeast.org/news-events/stories-from-the-center-of-the-world-readings-from-jordan-elgrably-and-omar-el-akkad/

Join us for the "Stories of the Center of the World" Book Tour from May 9-22!Celebrate the launch of "Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction," published by City Lights, with editor Jordan Elgrably and contributing writers.Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *Which event(s) will you be joining us for? *May 9 - City Lights (San Francisco) with Jordan Elgrably and Sarah AlKahly-MillsMay 10 - Books Inc (Berkeley) with Jordan Elgrably and Sarah AlKahly-MillsMay 11 - Capital Books (Sacramento) with Jordan ElgrablyMay 16 - Beyond Baroque (Los Angeles) with Jordan Elgrably and Reza Sixo SafaiMay 17 - The Writers Block (Las Vegas) with Jordan Elgrably and Ahmed NajiMay 20 - Northwestern University (Chicago) with Jordan Elgrably and Sahar MustafahMay 21 - Busboys and Poets (Washington DC) with Jordan Elgrably and Natasha TynesMay 22 - NYPL Tompkins Square (NYC) with Jordan Elgrably and Omar El AkkadPlease select the date and location that you plan to attend from the drop-down list above, you can select multiple options.RSVP
Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.

Short stories from 25 emerging and established writers of Middle Eastern and North African origins, a unique collection of voices and viewpoints that illuminate life in the global Arab/Muslim world.
“Provocative and subtle, nuanced and surprising . . . these stories demonstrate how this complicated and rich region might best be approached— through the power of literature…” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Committed
Stories from the Center of the World gathers new writing from the greater Middle East or SWANA — a vast region that stretches from Southwest Asia, through the Middle East and Turkey, and across Northern Africa. The 25 authors included here come from a wide range of cultures and countries, including Palestine, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco, to name a few.
In “Asha and Haaji,” Hanif Kureishi takes up the cause of outsiders who become uprooted when war or disaster strikes and they flee for safe haven. In Nektaria Anastasiadou’s “The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff,” two students in Istanbul from different classes—and religions that have often been at odds with one another—believe they can overcome all obstacles. MK Harb’s story, “Counter Strike,” is about queer love among Beiruti adolescents, and Salar Abdoh’s “The Long Walk of the Martyrs” invites us into the world of former militants, fighters who fought ISIS or Daesh in Iraq and Syria, and are having a hard time readjusting to civilian life. In “Eleazar,” Karim Kattan tells an unexpected Palestinian story in which the usual antagonists—Israeli occupation forces—are mostly absent, while another malevolent force seems to overtake an unsuspecting family. Omar El Akkad’s “The Icarist” is a coming-of-age story about the underworld in which illegal immigrants are forced to live, and what happens when one dares to break away.

JORDAN ELGRABLY is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and translator, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and The Paris Review. He is the editor of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights 2024) and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories Press 2024). Elgrably founded and edits The Markaz Review.

TMR 41 • FORGETTING Roundtable Discussion
2024-05-16 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
RSVP here
Join us online on Thursday, May 16th at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET/ 6pm UK for our May roundtable discussion which invites four contributors to TMR 41, FORGETTING, to a conversation around the culture of memory and forgetting in the Arab world.
As Mai Al Nakib asserts in her essay, “Writing is a memory archive, [providing] a portal to lost time, to fading traces of existence.” And this archive created and maintained by writers is often preserved against/in contradiction to/in defiance of/in resistance to and in spite of the approved narratives of the State. And so, four writers from four different Arab countries, each with its own traumatic and turbulent relationship to memory and forgetfulness—Nabil Salih, from Iraq, Mai Al Nakib, from Kuwait, Saleem Haddad, from Palestine via Lebanon, and Asmaa El Gamal, from Egypt—sit down with senior editor Lina Mounzer, from Lebanon, to talk about those relationships and to discuss how personal memory might act upon the historical record.
Read this month’s editorial by Malu Halasa and Jordan Elgrably, “Why FORGETTING?”.
RSVP here
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speakers:
Lina Mounzer is a Lebanese writer and translator. She has been a regular contributor to the New York Times and her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Freeman’s, Washington Post, and The Baffler, as well as in the anthologies Tales of Two Planets (Penguin 2020), and Best American Essays 2022 (Harper Collins 2022). She is a senior editor at The Markaz Review.

Mai Al-Nakib was born in Kuwait and spent the first six years of her life in London; Edinburgh; and St. Louis, Missouri. She holds a PhD in English literature from Brown University. She was an Associate Professor of English and comparative literature at Kuwait University, where she taught for twenty years; she recently left this position to write full-time. Her research focuses on cultural politics in the Middle East, with a special emphasis on gender, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonial issues. Her short story collection, The Hidden Light of Objects, was published by Bloomsbury in 2014. It won the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s First Book Award. Her debut novel, An Unlasting Home—published by Mariner Books in the US and Saqi in the UK—came out in paperback in April 2023. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in various publications, including Ninth Letter; The First Line; After the Pause; World Literature Today; Rowayat; New Lines Magazine; and the BBC World Service. She divides her time between Kuwait and Greece.
Read her centerpiece essay in this month’s issue, “Memory Archive: Between Remembering and Forgetting.”

Saleem Haddad is a novelist, screenwriter, and essayist currently based in Lisbon, with roots in Amman, Beirut, and London. His award-winning debut novel, Guapa, was published in 2016.
Read his book review of “My Brother, My Land: A Story from Palestine” in our May issue.

Asmaa Elgamal is a writer and scholar from Alexandria, Egypt. She earned her PhD in International Development and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her research explored the colonial and military histories of spatial planning in the Middle East and North Africa. Her writing has appeared in New Lines Magazine, Contingent Magazine, and Insider. She was also longlisted for the 2021 DISQUIET International Literary Prize for Non-Fiction.
Read her essay, “The Elephant in the Box” in this month’s issue.

Nabil Salih is a writer and photographer from Baghdad who holds an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown and is pursuing a second MA in Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College. His writings appear in Jadaliyya, Allegra Lab, Al Jazeera English and LeftEast among others, and have been translated to Italian, Spanish, French and other languages.
Read his essay, “Regarding the Photographs of Others—An Iraqi Journey Toward Remembering” in our latest issue.

RSVP here

Carte Blanche : Dialogue entre Alain Damasio et Karim Kattan
2024-05-19 17:30 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Espace Albertine Sarrazin – Promenade du Peyrou, Montpellier, 34000, France
Nous avons le plaisir de vous retrouver le 19 mai 2024 dans le cadre de la Comédie du Livre à 17h30 pour une carte blanche d’Alain Damasio avec le poète et romancier palestinien Karim Kattan. L’occasion de découvrir ou redécouvrir son premier roman paru aux Éditions Elyzad, Le palais des deux collines.
Une rencontre organisée par The Markaz Review en partenariat avec le salon de la Comédie du Livre de Montpellier.
Cet événement prendra place dans l’espace Albertine Sarrazin – Promenade du Peyrou.
En savoir plus de Karim Kattan :
Karim Kattan est un écrivain palestinien, né à Jérusalem en 1989. Il est titulaire d’un doctorat en littérature comparée de Paris Nanterre et écrit en anglais et en français. En français, ses livres comprennent un recueil de nouvelles, Préliminaires pour un verger futur (2017), et un roman, Le Palais des deux collines (2021), tous deux publiés par les Éditions Elyzad, basées à Tunis. Le Palais des deux collines a reçu le Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie en 2021 et a été présélectionné pour de nombreux autres prix. En anglais, son travail est paru notamment dans The Paris Review, Strange Horizons, The Maine Review, +972 Magazine, Translunar Travelers Lounge et The Funambulist . Kattan a été l’un des cofondateurs et directeurs d’el-Atlal, une résidence d’art et d’écriture dans l’oasis de Jéricho (Palestine).
Parcourir ses contributions pour The Markaz Review:

Comment Bethléem est passée de l’arrière-pays endormi de Jérusalem à une ville mondiale
“Eleazar” – une nouvelle de Karim Kattan
Karim Kattan : “Le fossoyeur”

En savoir plus de Alain Damasio :
Alain Damasio est un écrivain de science-fiction français. Son domaine de prédilection est l’anticipation politique. Il marie ce genre à des éléments de science-fiction ou de fantasy et décrit des dystopies politiques.

TMR Book Club Discusses “Where the Wind Calls Home” with the author Samar Yazbek
2024-05-29 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
RSVP here
Join TMR’s Book Club on Wednesday, May 29th at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET/ 6pm UK to discuss “Where the Wind Calls Home” with the author Samar Yazbek on Zoom. In this new novel by Syria’s most prominent writer of the National Book Award “Finalist Planet of Clay,” a wounded nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian Army remembers his life lived in the traditional Alawite way.
In this new novel by Syria’s most prominent writer of the National Book Award Finalist Planet of Clay, a wounded nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian Army remembers his life lived in the traditional Alawite way.
Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole–is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn’t there … While trying to understand the extend of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety. Through rich vignettes of Ali’s memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage. Yazbek here explores the secrets of the Alawite faith and its relationship to nature and the elements in a tight poetic novel dense with life and hope and love.
Published by World Editions. Translated by Leri Price.
RSVP here
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the author:
Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in Jableh, Syria, near Latakia, in 1970, and studied Arabic literature at Latakia university.

Yazbek has been a prominent voice in support of human rights and more specifically women’s rights in Syria. In 2012, she launched Women Now for Development, an NGO based in France that aims at empowering Syrian women economically and socially and at educating children.

In 2010, Yazbek was selected as one of the 39 most promising authors under the age of 40, by Beirut39, a contest organized by the Hay Festival. In 2011, she took part in the popular uprising against the Assad regime, and was forced to exile a few months later. In 2012, she was chosen for the prestigious PEN/Pinter Prize “International writer of courage”, in recognition of her book “In the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution”. She was also awarded the Swedish Tucholsky Prize, and the Dutch Oxfam/PEN Prize, in the following year. In 2016 Yazbek’s literary narrative “The Crossing” was awarded the prestigious French “Best Foreign Book” prize. Her novel, “The blue pen”, was in the third and final selection of the French Femina award, and was shortlisted to the National Book Award, New York under the title “Planet of Clay” in 2021.
In 2019, Samar Yazbek was attributed the honorary citizenship by the City of Palermo. And in 2022, Yazbek was chosen by the Royal Society of Literature as one of its 12 International W1riters, along with Anne Carson, Maryse Condé, Yoko Ogawa and Juan Gabriel Vasquez, among others, thereby joining the 12 inaugural awardees of 2021, including Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Amin Maalouf and Olga Tokarczuk. The RSL international Writers program is an award recognizing the contribution of writers across the globe, celebrating the power of literature to transcend boundaries. New writers are invited to join the program each year.

Yazbek has published two collections of short stories, seven novels, four non-fiction literary narratives. Samar Yazbek lives in France. Her books have been translated in over twenty languages.

About the translator:
Leri Price is an award-winning literary translator of contemporary Arabic fiction. She has twice been a Finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, in 2021 for her translations of Samar Yazbek’s Planet of Clay, and in 2019 for Khaled Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work. Her translation of Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work also won the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

TMR 42 • THEATRE Roundtable Discussion
2024-06-20 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
RSVP here
This month, TMR presents a lively and potentially contentious conversation on contemporary Arab and Arab American theatre from the viewpoint of its theatremakers in the post-Covid era. This discussion will be moderated by playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak (Iraq), and featuring artistic director/producer Georgina Van Welie (UK/Kuwait), Egyptian American playwright Yussef El Guindi (USA) and Syrian playwright Mudar Alhaggi.
Join us online on Thursday, June 20th at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET/ 6pm UK.
Discover their work in our THEATRE issue:

Hassan Abdulrazzak’s centerpiece: Dare Not Speak—a One-Act Play
Yussef El Guindi’s play: As We Near the End (or What Adorno Said)
Georgina Van Welie’s essay: Arab Shakespeare?
Mudar Alhaggi’s play: The Return of Danton—a Play by Mudar Alhaggi & Collective Ma’louba

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speakers:
Hassan Abdulrazzak is an award-winning writer of Iraqi origin, born in Prague and living in London. His plays include The Special Relationship; And Here I Am; Love, Bombs and Apples; The Prophet; and Baghdad Wedding (all published by Bloomsbury). Abdulrazzak has translated numerous Arabic plays and contributed to several anthologies including Iraq +100 (Comma Press). The script of his short film A Night of Gharam won the Unsolicited Scripts Short Film Grant 2022.
Born in Egypt, raised in London and now based in Seattle, Yussef El Guindi’s work frequently examines the collision of ethnicities, cultures and politics that face Arab/ Middle Eastern Americans and Muslim Americans. His many productions include Hotter Than Egypt at Marin Theatre Company and ACT in Seattle; People of the Book at ACT; The Talented Ones at ART in Portland; and Threesome at Portland Center Stage, ACT, and at 59E59 (NY). Broadway Play Publishing Inc. published a collection of short pieces entitled In A Clear Concise Arabic Tongue. He is the recipient of several honors, including the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Playwriting Award, L.A. Weekly’s Excellence in Playwriting Award, and the Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award.
Georgina Van Welie graduated from Cambridge University then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she directed three shows for their Fringe Festival before going on to found her own company Inigo Productions. Co-founder of Sabab Theatre from 2002 – 2013 she produced bilingual Arabic/English theatre productions in collaboration with prestigious performing-arts organisations that include: The Kennedy Center, BAM New York, Arts Emerson (USA); The Royal Shakespeare Company, Riverside Studios, Gate Theatre, Shubbak Festival (UK); Le Comedie Francaise, Bouffes du Nord (France), The Holland Festival, Warsaw Festival, Attiki Festival Greece; The Tokyo International Arts Festival, Seoul Performing Arts Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Sydney Festival; Dar al Athar Al Islamiyyah Kuwait, Al Ain Festival, Sharjah Biennale, Cairo International Theatre Festival, Le Tournesol Theatre Beirut. She is currently working on a new Shakespeare Trilogy. Georgina has also worked as story liner, script editor and co-writer on a number of award-winning TV shows and films with Channel 4, Pearson Television (UK) and most recently with Linked Productions Whose Country (dir. Siam Mohammed).
Mudar Alhaggi is a playwright, dramaturg, and cultural activist. He received a B.A in Dramatic Studies from The Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in 2005 and shortly afterwards co-established the Street Workshop for playwriting. From 2005-2011, he designed interactive activities for children, and trained trainers in interactive theatre methods. He participated in several writing workshops and residency programs in Europe and the Arab region.
He was artist in residency in “Delfina foundation , London 2010” and in “Schlachthaus Theater Bern, 2014.” In 2013, Mudar moved from Damascus to Beirut, where did many artistic projects, he launched “KEIT KEIT KEIT” a series of writing and documentation workshops for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Then later in Europe ( Graz, Zurich, Dresden, Berlin), he also was a dramaturge of ( above zero) performance, produced by Koon theatre group, and presented in Beirut, Tunisa, and Amsterdam. Also in 2014 Mudar directed (one thousand and one tents) performance, produced by Ettijahat, and presented in sunflower theatre in Beirut. In May-june Mudar was artist in residency in “Schlachthaus Theater Bern” where he wrote a daily blog for -Auawirleben theatre festival, and started a collaporation with K.N.P.V teater group, in producing (41 stunden) where was a drmaturg/ performer, the show was premiered in 2016 in Kellertheatre wintertur. In 2014- 2015 Founder and artistic director (with Erik Altorfer) of Futures Stages, a playwriting workshop for Syrian and Syrian-Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The project was supported by Ettijahat and prohelvitia.
His texts incude The Don Juan, Wisal, Bronze, When Farah Cries, 41 Hours, Your Love is Fire, Barsach, Orura, Just a Formality, The Dead are Busy, The Return of Danton.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RSVP here

Literary Event: "Stories from the Center of the World" with editor Jordan Elgrably
2024-06-29 19:00 - 20:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Gazette Café, 6 Rue Levat, Montpellier, 34000, France
TMR presents a literary event in English, for the release of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction published by City Lights, with editor Jordan Elgrably on Saturday, June 29th at 7pm at Gazette Café in Montpellier.
RSVP here
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the book:
This book brings together the best short stories published in The Markaz Review literary magazine, with contributions from 25 emerging and/or established writers of Middle Eastern and North African origin; a unique collection of voices and points of view that illuminate life in the modern Arab world.
The stories cover a number of styles and genres, from literary fiction to science fiction, epistolary to noir.
Contributors include Salar Abdoh, Leila Aboulela, Farah Ahamed, Omar El Akkad, Sarah AlKahly-Mills, Nektaria Anastasiadou, Amany Kamal Eldin, Jordan Elgrably, May Haddad, Malu Halasa, Mohamad Khalil (MK) Harb, Alireza Iranmehr, Karim Kattan, Hanif Kureshi, Sahar Mustafah, Ahmed Naji, Mai Al-Nakib and Natasha Tynes.
About the editor:
Jordan Elgrably is a Moroccan-born Franco-American writer whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines. He is the Editor-in-Chief and Founder of The Markaz Review in Montpellier.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RSVP here

The Muslim Musical Mosaic Project: Creating A New American Muslim Musical Tradition
2024-06-30 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Denver) | Cats Crawl Theater, 660 North Heliotrope Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90004, United States
The Markaz Review is proud to co-sponsor Muslims for Progressive Value’s event: “Creating a New American Muslim Tradition” as part of Phase I of their Muslim Musical Mosaic.
This event will take place at the Cats Crawl Theater in Los Angeles, CA (660 North Heliotrope Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90004) on June 30, 2024 from 5:00-6:30 pm PST. Featured speakers and performers include: Professor Mark Levine (University California-Irvine), Lu Fuki, Alfred Madian, Farah Mitha, Tazeen Ayub, Aiman Khan and Ani Zonneveld.
To learn more and register: https://mpvusa.networkforgood.com/events/71316-muslim-musical-mosaic-event

TMR Book Club Discusses "On the Isle of Antioch" by Amin Maalouf
2024-06-30 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
RSVP here
Join us online on Sunday, June 30th at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET for this month’s Book Club discussion of On the Isle of Antioch by Amin Maalouf, translated by Natasha Lehrer.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the book:
In this dystopian novel about total collapse by internationally renowned author Amin Maalouf, a complete blackout hits a small island with only two solitary inhabitants, who suddenly have to depend on each other.
Alec, a press artist with an impressive track record, settles on a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. He has little contact with his neighbor, a solitary woman who wrote a cult book years ago, before withdrawing from public life. That is, until a gigantic power failure cuts them off from the rest of the world, and all of a sudden they find themselves dependent on each other. The world appears to be on the brink of nuclear war and the collapse of civilization seems imminent. Just who are the mysterious friends of Empedocles, the gang of otherworldly protectors who came swooping in to interfere with the US presidency and cure all illness? Should we trust them? On the Isle of Antioch is a suspenseful novel with mythological roots, written in the dreamy language of the classics, by internationally renowned scholar Amin Maalouf.
Published by World Editions.
About the author:
AMIN MAALOUF was born in Beirut and lived there until the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975. He settled in Paris in 1976 and published his first book, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, in 1983. In 1993, The Rock of Tanios, his fifth novel, won the Goncourt Prize, the most prestigious literary award in France. Maalouf is a member of the Académie Française and in 2010 was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature for his entire oeuvre. In 2021 he was voted one of 12 International Writers by the Royal Society of Literature, an initiative celebrating the power of literature to transcend borders and bring people together. He was awarded both the Terzani Prize and the Malaparte Prize for Adrift, also published in English by World Editions. His work has been translated into 50 languages and his most recent bestselling novel available in English is The Disoriented.
About the translator:
NATASHA LEHRER is a prizewinning writer, translator, and editor. Her long-form journalism and book reviews have appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, the Times Literary Supplement, the Nation, Haaretz, and Fantastic Man, among others, and she is literary editor of the Jewish Quarterly. She has contributed to several books, including a chapter on France in Looking for an Enemy: 8 Essays on Antisemitism, edited by Jo Glanville. The writers she has translated include Nathalie Léger, Chantal Thomas, Vanessa Springora, Victor Segalen, Robert Desnos, and Georges Bataille.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RSVP here

Weaving a World: Arabic Poetry in Translation
2024-07-13 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA, 90291, United States
The Markaz Review and Beyond Baroque are pleased to present “Weaving a World: Arabic Poetry in Translation.” Titled after the Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq Al -Raddi’s poem, “Weaving a World,” the evening of readings in The Wanda Coleman Theatre at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA features poets Zeina Hashem Beck, Zêdan Xelef, and Maya Salameh. This event is part of the Poetry Coalition’s slate of programs in the spring and summer that reflect the transformative impact poetry has on individual readers and communities across the nation, and is made possible (in part) by the Academy of American Poets with support from the Mellon Foundation.

This event will take place in-person at Beyond Baroque (681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291) and live on YouTube on Saturday, July 13th at 7:00 pm PT.

RSVP here
