Review: <em>Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope</em>

Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, Michael Sorkin & Deen Sharp, editors.

14 JULY 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars

Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, Michael Sorkin & Deen Sharp, editors
American University in Cairo Press/Terreform
ISBN 9781649030733

 

Hadani Ditmars

 

I remember my first trip to Gaza, as a 26-year-old reporter for a post-Oslo Accord joint Israeli-Palestinian monthly magazine published by Hana Signora called, optimistically, The New Middle East. It was 1994, and Gaza had technically just been liberated from years of occupation. I encountered a piece of Palestine that felt a bit like an Egyptian seaside town arrested in the mid-century. It was low-tech and naturally green, a place where men road bicycles through town and children played at the beach. I interviewed gangs of kids who worked at the city dump, recycling metals and plastics to sell via Palestinian middlemen to Israeli factories, and visited an ancient Greek Orthodox church with a woman from an old Gazan Christian family. I picnicked with families amid citrus groves, inhaling the aroma of orange blossoms, and experienced incredible hospitality.

This was before Israel encouraged Hamas as a foil to Fatah, even before Arafat’s triumphant, if brief return in a helicopter, before he holed up in the ruins of his Mukataʿa fortress near Ramallah … and before Rabin was assassinated by a religious settler extremist.  Somehow, in that moment, Gaza felt like a newly reawakened Sleeping Beauty, a place where movement was free, and the future was wide and open and full of promise.

Now, some 27 years later, as Gaza struggles to recover from yet another round of Israeli bombings, the situation looks bleak. But a recent tome published by Terreform and AUC press  called Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, offers an alternate vision, and one that somehow recalls that feeling I first had about the place in 1994. The Gaza of this handsome book is one that transcends the excesses of occupation via imagination and innovation, resilience, and ultimately courage.

Open Gaza is a book that dares to subvert the tired old narratives of despair and gives agency to Gaza’s 1.8 million inhabitants via the magic of architectural intervention. And yet, while edited by architects/academics and activists Deen Sharp and the late, great Michael Sorkin, the book does not ignore the brutal realities of occupation, but rather, in suggesting solutions both in spite of it and for a hoped-for post-occupation future, underlines them. As they write in their introduction, “It was the fatal delusion of modernist architecture and planning that their spatial practices by themselves transform the social and political realms. We are under no such illusions. Nor do we have the slightest doubt that substantive change can only occur if Israel’s boot is lifted from Gazan throats and Palestinian national aspirations are realized.”

As per the dynamic cover photo depicting a young boy doing a parkour inspired back flip on the Mediterranean shore, Open Gaza dances over and around the constraints of occupation, using them as materials for deconstructing the politics of space.

“Gaza needs a seaport, an airport, a robust source of energy, and a vibrant and diversified economy on its own territory. For this to happen, the Israeli siege on Gaza must end. Gazans—and all Palestinians—must be given control over the social, political, and economic resources that frame their own lives.”
— Michael Sorkin & Deen Sharp

Here one finds cities of crystal, as imagined by Craig Konyk in a chapter where he proposes a rebuilding strategy for Gaza City, in which “glass is the material of choice that allows the destruction to remain visible.” By reinventing public sites destroyed by Israeli airstrikes as transparent structures — ranging from a toppled minaret to an office tower cocooned in glass — his futuristic renderings reveal both the strength and vulnerability of broken landscapes and speak to what he hopes will be a “more open and progressive future.”

There is a powerful chapter on the tunnels of Gaza, so key to smuggling in the necessities of life as well as construction materials. It’s written as a compelling and often frightening underground travelogue by a writer under a pseudonym — underscoring the omnipresent danger of both inhabiting and documenting Gaza. Another, in this age of climate change emergency, proposes a protective solar dome, as imagined by Chris Mackey and Rafi Segal, while chapters on “Re-Ecologizing Gaza” (by Fadi Shaaya and Visualizing Palestine) and “Social Hydrology: a Design Resistance” (by Denise Hoffman Brandt) offer green foils to the environmental destruction imposed by occupation. “Natural Gaza,” a chapter by Romi Khosla, suggests building a memorial to the Nakba that can also engender peace and reconciliation, while Helga Tawil-Souri writes of her idea to create an alternate kind of IPN — not an Internet Phone Number but an Internet Pigeon Network that easily subverts existing Israeli technology.

Architect Salem Al Qudwa, born in 1976 to a Palestinian family in Benghazi, Libya, returned to Gaza at the age of 21 to study architectural engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza. He went on to obtain a Ph.D. from the Oxford School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He has managed projects ranging from primary healthcare clinics and schools to the rehabilitation of shelters for poor families living in marginalized and rural areas in the Gaza Strip. His artistic skills have also contributed towards the Renovation of Rafah Cross Border Terminal between Egypt and Gaza.
Architect Salem Al Qudwa, born in 1976 to a Palestinian family in Benghazi, Libya, returned to Gaza at the age of 21 to study architectural engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza. He went on to obtain a Ph.D. from the Oxford School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He has managed projects ranging from primary healthcare clinics and schools to the rehabilitation of shelters for poor families living in marginalized and rural areas in the Gaza Strip. His artistic skills have also contributed towards the Renovation of Rafah Cross Border Terminal between Egypt and Gaza.

A chapter by Alberto Foyo and Postopia called “Redrawing Gaza,” presents a project that subverts the Sykes/Picot “line in the sand” that sealed the fate of so many modern Middle Eastern nations by decolonizing it as a masharabiya-inspired “fabric of architecture and agriculture, knitting these together to form a fertile fabric, one that can defiantly position itself as a reconceptualised utopia.” Their drawings weave together urban and rural landscapes, embracing them with the traditional screen like patterning of the masharabiya as an architectural, textile like healing art — a balm designed for “Gaza’s burned skin.”

The book’s more futuristic visions are balanced by built projects like the Qattan Center for Children, in a chapter written by its architect, Omar Yousef. But a chapter called “Architecture of the Everyday,” by Gazan architect Salem Al Qudwa, a Fellow in Conflict and Peace at the Harvard Divinity School on a new green, flexible, and affordable model he has designed for self-built homes, seems the most down to earth and pragmatic of the book’s many flights of fancy. They are designed to be constructed on sand and rubble and to create a “nurturing and safe environment for women and children, and to empower communities.”

The concept of “home” can be a fraught one in Palestine — with growing tensions between the symbolic and the actual. Even before forced evictions from Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem earlier this year sparked a conflict that resulted in an Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza that destroyed basic infrastructure, over 2,000 housing units and displaced some 74,000 Gazans, there was an urgent need for housing. Gaza has never fully recovered from the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, and unchecked illegal settlements in the West Bank have contributed to rising land costs that make home ownership unaffordable for most families.

After the 2014 war, when 11,000 housing units were destroyed and 160,000 damaged, Al Qudwa says that international agencies built housing that was inappropriate to local needs and climate. These included temporary wooden structures that did not accommodate large extended families, isolating people from their multi-generational support networks, and didn’t provide proper insulation for heating and cooling. He contends this was because UNRWA and other agencies employed foreign architects and didn’t consult locals. Now, as the US pledges to give millions of dollars in emergency reconstruction aid, Al Qudwa fears the cycle will repeat itself again.

Inspecting the the rubble of the Yazegi residential building, destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City, Sunday, May 16, 2021 (AP Photo/Adel Hana).
Inspecting the the rubble of the Yazegi residential building, destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City, Sunday, May 16, 2021 (AP Photo/Adel Hana).

Part of the challenge, he says, beyond the Israeli blockade in place since 2007 that limits availability of building supplies, is that, “Annihilation in the Gaza Strip has become so frequent that houses are being built, destroyed and reconstructed at the same time.” But on a hopeful note, Al Qudwa sees the “architecture of the every-day” as a resource for “positive social transformation.”

Salem Al Qudwa's protoype for Gazan homes.
Salem Al Qudwa’s protoype for Gazan homes.

His prototype is for 3-5 story homes made of concrete with proper insulation and strong foundations, a key component in creating a sense of permanence in the midst of uncertainty. As opposed to the one-story wooden homes built as temporary shelters after 2014, this model will allow families to grow and will accommodate Gaza’s many widows, who often have to sacrifice their autonomy by moving in with their in-laws. In terms of not being targeted by Israeli bombing the prototypes are also safer, Al Qudwa contends, than the plethora of high-rises that sprang up post-1994, when so many Palestinians returned from the diaspora (such as the 13-story Al Jawarha tower destroyed by the IDF on May 12th this year), and are more cost effective than current models.

Prior to the occupation, limestone was the dominant building material, but now it’s too expensive to import from the West Bank. Instead, Al Qudwa argues that concrete, imported from Israel, is the “new vernacular.” But rather than  the tyranny of regimented, uniform housing blocks, his design breaks up scale and massing with brick patterning, lattice like screening, shading windows, and roof gardens. A shared service corridor is transformed into a summer courtyard, while an external communal staircase connects the different levels with a modicum of privacy.

The prototype is green friendly, incorporating solar water heating units, rainwater harvesting systems and  grey water recycling, so crucial to an area with scarce water and electricity, and can be adapted for densely populated areas in Gaza City as well as buffer zones like Jabalya.

With its flat, asphalt-based bitumen roof, the design reads like a Bauhaus version of one of the traditional Gazan courtyard houses that have slowly disappeared, as the need for larger and more modern residences has grown with the population.

Al Qudwa’s model subverts prevailing trends in “emergency shelter” strategies for Gaza, as well as the likes of the much-touted planned “Palestinian city” of Rawabi, in the West Bank. Stretching across 2.4 square miles, it’s virtually indistinguishable from the suburban style housing popular in America or indeed in neighboring Israeli settlements.

His chapter is but one of many admirable ones in Open Gaza, but one that roots architectural change in pragmatic and indigenous design.

Of all the excellent chapters, it is one called “Timeless Gaza,” by Mahdi Sabbagh and Meghan McAllister, that speaks most strongly to the book’s title. Here the authors look to Gaza’s past as an interconnected trading hub linking east and west as a foil to its current boxed in, proscribed limitations and isolation.

“Traces of an open, connected, and expanded past can be found in the Gaza Strip and its nearby territories. Archaeological remnants of spice trade towns between Petra and Gaza remind us of Gaza’s centrality in an ancient trading network. Defunct British railway lines imply a past where the Strip was not a Strip at all, but part of a network of regional cities. The Salah al-Din Road, which connects the Gaza Strip from north to south, is evidence of ancient aspirations of providing continuous mobility along the Mediterranean coast, as are the archaeological remnants of Via Maris, the Roman trading line. Late twentieth century and twenty first century infrastructure — such as the bombed airport, a besieged seaport, and rapidly built tunnels —represent a contemporary Palestinian Gaza that strives to exist as a networked city in continuity with its past.”

I remember Gaza’s airport, built in 1998 amid great fanfare with an inauguration attended by Arafat and the Clintons. I flew there from Amman in 2000, to interview Naime Holoh, the first woman armed combatant for the PLO, arrested for the first time by the Israelis for violent resistance, and then arrested for non-violent resistance in the First Intifada. Now she was running a center for women and children in Jabaylia where she had grown up, that offered literacy training, childcare, and a traditional crafts collective. She and her colleagues showed me around graciously and then fed me copious amounts of chicken and rice in a mid-rise building whose top three floors were still in mid-construction.

It was the beginning of the Second Intifada, and the day I was supposed to leave, the Israelis closed the airport and later destroyed it completely, leaving flight to the likes of the young boy on the cover of Open Gaza, poised somewhere in mid-air, between that weightless thrill of anti-gravity, and the reality of occupation.

I remember Naime now and all my friends in Gaza, who, amidst grand plans, colonial maps, ancient trade routes and utopian dreams, are carving out their own architectures of hope, every single day.

 

See also Hadani Ditmars on Gaza’s housing challenges in Architectural Digest.

Hadani Ditmars

Hadani Ditmars Hadani Ditmars has been reporting from the Middle East on culture, society, and politics since the '90s. She is the author of Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq and a former editor at New Internationalist. Her... Read more

Hadani Ditmars has been reporting from the Middle East on culture, society, and politics since the '90s. She is the author of Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq and a former editor at New Internationalist. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Sight and Sound, the San Francisco Chronicle, Haaretz, Wallpaper, Vogue, and Ms. Magazine, and broadcast on CBC, BBC, NPR, and RTE. Her book in progress, Between Two Rivers, is a political travelogue of ancient and sacred sites in Iraq.

Read less

Join Our Community

TMR exists thanks to its readers and supporters. By sharing our stories and celebrating cultural pluralism, we aim to counter racism, xenophobia, and exclusion with knowledge, empathy, and artistic expression.

Learn more

RELATED

Book Reviews

Resistance and Revolution: on Ghassan Kanafani

14 MARCH 2025 • By Farah-Silvana Kanaan
Resistance and Revolution: on Ghassan Kanafani
Book Reviews

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza—a Review

28 FEBRUARY 2025 • By David N. Myers
<em>Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza</em>—a Review
Opinion

The Western Way of Genocide

14 FEBRUARY 2025 • By Chris Hedges
The Western Way of Genocide
Book Reviews

Yassini Girls—a Powerful Yet Flawed Account of Historical Trauma

31 JANUARY 2025 • By Natasha Tynes
<em>Yassini Girls</em>—a Powerful Yet Flawed Account of Historical Trauma
Essays

A Fragile Ceasefire as Lebanon Survives, Traumatized

29 NOVEMBER 2024 • By Tarek Abi Samra
A Fragile Ceasefire as Lebanon Survives, Traumatized
Essays

A Jewish Meditation on the Palestinian Genocide

15 NOVEMBER 2024 • By Sheryl Ono
A Jewish Meditation on the Palestinian Genocide
Essays

Palestine, the Land of Grapes and Wine

11 OCTOBER 2024 • By Fadi Kattan, Anna Patrowicz
Palestine, the Land of Grapes and Wine
Editorial

A Year of War Without End

4 OCTOBER 2024 • By Lina Mounzer
A Year of War Without End
Featured article

Censorship and Cancellation Fail to Camouflage the Ugly Truth

4 OCTOBER 2024 • By Jordan Elgrably
Censorship and Cancellation Fail to Camouflage the Ugly Truth
Opinion

Everything Has Changed, Nothing Has Changed

4 OCTOBER 2024 • By Amal Ghandour
Everything Has Changed, Nothing Has Changed
Book Reviews

Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew by Avi Shlaim—a Review

19 JULY 2024 • By Selma Dabbagh
<em>Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew</em> by Avi Shlaim—a Review
Essays

What Is Home?—Gazans Redefine Place Amid Displacement

31 MAY 2024 • By Nadine Aranki
What Is Home?—Gazans Redefine Place Amid Displacement
Essays

A Proustian Alexandria

3 MAY 2024 • By Mohamed Gohar
A Proustian Alexandria
Featured article

Israel-Palestine: Peace Under Occupation?

29 JANUARY 2024 • By Laëtitia Soula
Israel-Palestine: Peace Under Occupation?
Essays

Nothing out of the Ordinary: A Journalist’s West Bank Memories

22 JANUARY 2024 • By Chloé Benoist
Nothing out of the Ordinary: A Journalist’s West Bank Memories
Essays

Meditations on Occupation, Architecture, Urbicide

25 DECEMBER 2023 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Meditations on Occupation, Architecture, Urbicide
Books

Inside Hamas: From Resistance to Regime

25 DECEMBER 2023 • By Paola Caridi
Inside <em>Hamas: From Resistance to Regime</em>
Essays

Demolition and Recreation in Benghazi: Interview with Sarri Elfaitouri

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Naima Morelli
Demolition and Recreation in Benghazi: Interview with Sarri Elfaitouri
Art & Photography

Palestinian Artists & Anti-War Supporters of Gaza Cancelled

27 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Nada Ghosn
Palestinian Artists & Anti-War Supporters of Gaza Cancelled
Opinion

Beautiful October 7th Art Belies the Horrors of War

13 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Mark LeVine
Beautiful October 7th Art Belies the Horrors of War
Essays

Atom Bombs and Earthquakes: Changing Arabian Culture Via Architecture

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By T.H. Shalaby
Atom Bombs and Earthquakes: Changing Arabian Culture Via Architecture
Essays

Interview: Oorvi Sharma, Architectural Researcher and Designer

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Rabi Georges
Interview: Oorvi Sharma, Architectural Researcher and Designer
Art

Ammar Khammash’s Sustainable Architecture

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Mischa Geracoulis
Ammar Khammash’s Sustainable Architecture
Islam

October 7 and the First Days of the War

23 OCTOBER 2023 • By Robin Yassin-Kassab
October 7 and the First Days of the War
Editorial

Palestine and the Unspeakable

16 OCTOBER 2023 • By Lina Mounzer
Palestine and the Unspeakable
Theatre

Jenin’s Freedom Theatre Survives Another Assault

24 JULY 2023 • By Hadani Ditmars
Jenin’s Freedom Theatre Survives Another Assault
Book Reviews

Ghassan Zeineddine Reflects On, Transcends the Identity Zeitgeist

17 JULY 2023 • By Youssef Rakha
Ghassan Zeineddine Reflects On, Transcends the Identity Zeitgeist
Art

Olafur Eliasson’s Curious Desert Contrasts Qatar and Iceland

4 JUNE 2023 • By Safae Daoudi
Olafur Eliasson’s <em>Curious Desert</em> Contrasts Qatar and Iceland
Film Reviews

Yallah Gaza! Presents the Case for Gazan Humanity

10 APRIL 2023 • By Karim Goury
<em>Yallah Gaza!</em> Presents the Case for Gazan Humanity
TV Review

Palestinian Territories Under Siege But Season 4 of Fauda Goes to Brussels and Beirut Instead

6 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Brett Kline
Palestinian Territories Under Siege But Season 4 of <em>Fauda</em> Goes to Brussels and Beirut Instead
Book Reviews

A Poet and Librarian Catalogs Life in Gaza

20 JUNE 2022 • By Eman Quotah
A Poet and Librarian Catalogs Life in Gaza
Art & Photography

Mapping an Escape from Cairo’s Hyperreality through informal Instagram archives

24 JANUARY 2022 • By Yahia Dabbous
Mapping an Escape from Cairo’s Hyperreality through informal Instagram archives
Centerpiece

The Untold Story of Zakaria Zubeidi

15 OCTOBER 2021 • By Ramzy Baroud
The Untold Story of Zakaria Zubeidi
Latest Reviews

The Limits of Empathy in Rabih Alameddine’s Refugee Saga

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Dima Alzayat
The Limits of Empathy in Rabih Alameddine’s Refugee Saga
Latest Reviews

Shelf Life: The Irreverent Nadia Wassef

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Sherine Elbanhawy
Shelf Life: The Irreverent Nadia Wassef
Weekly

Palestinian Akram Musallam Writes of Loss and Memory

29 AUGUST 2021 • By khulud khamis
Palestinian Akram Musallam Writes of Loss and Memory
Weekly

Reading Egypt from the Outside In, Youssef Rakha’s “Baraa and Zaman”

24 AUGUST 2021 • By Sherifa Zuhur
Reading Egypt from the Outside In, Youssef Rakha’s “Baraa and Zaman”
Book Reviews

Egypt Dreams of Revolution, a Review of “Slipping”

8 AUGUST 2021 • By Farah Abdessamad
Egypt Dreams of Revolution, a Review of “Slipping”
Weekly

Heba Hayek’s Gaza Memories

1 AUGUST 2021 • By Shereen Malherbe
Heba Hayek’s Gaza Memories
Columns

When War is Just Another Name for Murder

15 JULY 2021 • By Norman G. Finkelstein
When War is Just Another Name for Murder
Fiction

Gazan Skies, from the novel “Out of It”

14 JULY 2021 • By Selma Dabbagh
Gazan Skies, from the novel “Out of It”
Art

Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor

14 JULY 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor
Essays

The Gaza Mythologies

14 JULY 2021 • By Ilan Pappé
The Gaza Mythologies
Latest Reviews

Four Poems from Mosab Abu Toha

14 JULY 2021 • By Mosab Abu Toha
Four Poems from Mosab Abu Toha
Latest Reviews

Review: Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope

14 JULY 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
Review: <em>Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope</em>
Essays

In Retrospect: An American Educator in Gaza

14 JULY 2021 • By Diane Shammas
In Retrospect: An American Educator in Gaza
Columns

Gaza’s Catch-22s

14 JULY 2021 • By Khaled Diab
Gaza’s Catch-22s
Latest Reviews

A Response to “Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” 2014-15

14 JULY 2021 • By Tony Litwinko
A Response to “Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” 2014-15
Weekly

“Hot Maroc” Satirizes Marrakesh, Moroccan Society

11 JULY 2021 • By El Habib Louai
“Hot Maroc” Satirizes Marrakesh, Moroccan Society
Weekly

The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter

4 JULY 2021 • By Maryam Zar
The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter
Book Reviews

ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter

4 JULY 2021 • By Jessica Proett
ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter
Weekly

A New Book on Music, Palestine-Israel & the “Three State Solution”

28 JUNE 2021 • By Mark LeVine
A New Book on Music, Palestine-Israel & the “Three State Solution”
Latest Reviews

Wasta on Steroids: Speculative Finance & the Housing Market

14 JUNE 2021 • By Mischa Geracoulis
Wasta on Steroids: Speculative Finance & the Housing Market
Weekly

Spare Me the Empathy Tantrum: Rafia Zakaria’s “Against White Feminism”

6 JUNE 2021 • By Myriam Gurba
Spare Me the Empathy Tantrum: Rafia Zakaria’s “Against White Feminism”
Weekly

Palestine in the World: “Palestine: A Socialist Introduction”

6 JUNE 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi
Palestine in the World: “Palestine: A Socialist Introduction”
Weekly

Arab Women and The Thousand and One Nights

30 MAY 2021 • By Malu Halasa
Arab Women and The Thousand and One Nights
Weekly

The Maps of Our Destruction: Two Novels on Syria

30 MAY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
The Maps of Our Destruction: Two Novels on Syria
Weekly

War Diary: The End of Innocence

23 MAY 2021 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
War Diary: The End of Innocence
Book Reviews

I was a French Muslim—Memories of an Algerian Freedom Fighter

23 MAY 2021 • By Mischa Geracoulis
<em>I was a French Muslim</em>—Memories of an Algerian Freedom Fighter
Weekly

Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt’s Roaring 20s

16 MAY 2021 • By Selma Dabbagh
Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt’s Roaring 20s
Book Reviews

The Triumph of Love and the Palestinian Revolution

16 MAY 2021 • By Fouad Mami
Art

Beautiful/Ugly: Against Aestheticizing Israel’s Separation Wall

14 MAY 2021 • By Malu Halasa
Weekly

Beirut Brings a Fragmented Family Together in “The Arsonists’ City”

9 MAY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Weekly

Why Mona Eltahawy Wants to Smash the Patriarchy

2 MAY 2021 • By Hiba Moustafa
Why Mona Eltahawy Wants to Smash the Patriarchy
Weekly

In Search of Knowledge, Mazid Travels to Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, Granada and Córdoba

2 MAY 2021 • By Eman Quotah
In Search of Knowledge, Mazid Travels to Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, Granada and Córdoba
Book Reviews

Three North African Novels Dance Between Colonial & Postcolonial Worlds

25 APRIL 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Three North African Novels Dance Between Colonial & Postcolonial Worlds
Weekly

“I Advance in Defeat”, the Poems of Najwan Darwish

28 MARCH 2021 • By Patrick James Dunagan
“I Advance in Defeat”, the Poems of Najwan Darwish
Book Reviews

Being Jewish and Muslim Together: Remembering Our Legacy

28 MARCH 2021 • By Joyce Zonana
Being Jewish and Muslim Together: Remembering Our Legacy
TMR 7 • Truth?

Secrets, Leaks, and the Imperative of Truth and Transparency

14 MARCH 2021 • By Stephen Rohde
Secrets, Leaks, and the Imperative of Truth and Transparency
TMR 7 • Truth?

Truth or Dare? Reinterpreting Al-Harīrī’s Arab Rogue

14 MARCH 2021 • By Farah Abdessamad
Truth or Dare? Reinterpreting Al-Harīrī’s Arab Rogue
TMR 7 • Truth?

The Crash, Covid-19 and Other Iranian Stories

14 MARCH 2021 • By Malu Halasa
The Crash, Covid-19 and Other Iranian Stories
TMR 7 • Truth?

Allah and the American Dream

14 MARCH 2021 • By Rayyan Al-Shawaf
Allah and the American Dream
TMR 7 • Truth?

Poetry Against the State

14 MARCH 2021 • By Gil Anidjar
Poetry Against the State
Weekly

Faïza Guène’s Fight for French Respectability

7 MARCH 2021 • By Melissa Chemam
Faïza Guène’s Fight for French Respectability
Book Reviews

The Polyphony of a Syrian Refugee Speaks Volumes

25 JANUARY 2021 • By Farah Abdessamad
The Polyphony of a Syrian Refugee Speaks Volumes
Book Reviews

The Howling of the Dog: Adania Shibli’s “Minor Detail”

30 DECEMBER 2020 • By Layla AlAmmar
The Howling of the Dog: Adania Shibli’s “Minor Detail”
Film

Threading the Needle: Najwa Najjar’s “Between Heaven and Earth”

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Ammiel Alcalay
Threading the Needle: Najwa Najjar’s “Between Heaven and Earth”
Weekly

Assaulting Free Speech in the Israel/Palestine Debate

6 DECEMBER 2020 • By TMR
Assaulting Free Speech in the Israel/Palestine Debate
TMR 3 • Racism & Identity

Isabel Wilkerson on Race and Caste in the 21st Century

15 NOVEMBER 2020 • By Monique El-Faizy
Isabel Wilkerson on Race and Caste in the 21st Century
Book Reviews

An American in Istanbul Between Muslim and Christian Worlds

15 NOVEMBER 2020 • By Anne-Marie O'Connor
An American in Istanbul Between Muslim and Christian Worlds
TMR 3 • Racism & Identity

Is White Feminism the De Facto Weapon of White Supremacy?

15 NOVEMBER 2020 • By TMR
The Red and the Blue

The “Surreal Hell” That Made Tahar Ben Jelloun a Writer

15 OCTOBER 2020 • By Rana Asfour
The “Surreal Hell” That Made Tahar Ben Jelloun a Writer
The Red and the Blue

Arabs & Race in America through the Short Story Prism

15 OCTOBER 2020 • By Malu Halasa
Arabs & Race in America through the Short Story Prism
Book Reviews

Falastin, Sami Tamimi’s “Palestinian Modern”

15 OCTOBER 2020 • By N.A. Mansour
Falastin, Sami Tamimi’s “Palestinian Modern”
Beirut

Salvaging the shipwreck of humanity in Amin Maalouf’s Adrift

15 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Sarah AlKahly-Mills
Salvaging the shipwreck of humanity in Amin Maalouf’s <em>Adrift</em>
Book Reviews

Poetic Exploration of Illness Conveys Trauma

14 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By India Hixon Radfar
Poetic Exploration of Illness Conveys Trauma
Book Reviews

Algiers, the Black Panthers & the Revolution

1 OCTOBER 2018 • By TMR
Algiers, the Black Panthers & the Revolution

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

five × one =

Scroll to Top