Poetry: Mohammed El-Kurd’s Rifqa Reviewed
India Hixon Radfar reviews the first collection of poetry from Palestinian firebrand Mohammed El-Kurd.
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Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, Infamous Symbols of US Human Rights Violations
Mischa Geracoulis reviews Maria Armoudian's "Lawyers Beyond Borders, Advancing International Human Rights Through Local Laws and Courts."
Khalida Jarrar—How to Resist and Win inside Israeli Prisons
Ramzy Baroud presents an excerpt of the memoir by former Israeli prisoner and attorney Khalida Jarrar.
The Story of Jericho Sheikh Daoud and His Beloved Mansaf
Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan recounts the tale of famed imprisoned leader Sheikh Daoud Iriqat and his beloved dish, mansaf.
Iraq’s Tishreen Movement Lives, Despite Government Corruption, Oppression
October marks the second anniversary of Iraq’s thawra. The non-violent Tishreen movement continues to demand all the things many of us take for granted. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have marched in cities across the country. Notes Beau Beausoleil, editor of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here anthology, “Those marching are…
Will Love Triumph in the Midst of Gaza’s 14-Year Siege?
Jordan Elgrably reviews the new film from the Nasser brothers, starring Hiam Abbass and Salim Daw.
Kurdish Poet and Writer Meral Şimşek Merits Her Freedom
Jordan Elgrably Imagine, if you will, being put on trial for publishing poems and stories extolling the values of human rights and equality — or rotting in prison as you wait to be tried, but being denied books and newspapers for two years, cut off from the world. Imagine…
Water-Deprived Palestinians Endure Settler Rampage, while Army Punishes NGO Protesters
Brett Kline In the last days of September, violent incidents in the South Hebron Hills area of the Occupied West Bank attracted media attention across the political spectrum in Israel, but scant mention in mainstream Western press. The incidents involved a small army of radical settlers who attacked a…
Displaced: From Beirut to Los Angeles to Beirut
Ara Oshagan I am walking along the narrow and labyrinthine Armenian neighborhoods of Bourj Hammoud in Beirut—spaces with names like Nor (new) Marash, Nor Sis, Nor Yozgat. These are the namesakes of towns that hearken back to a distant past, to places and lands from which these communities, my communities…
Hasteem, We Are Here: The Collective for Black Iranians
Twelve Gates Arts and the Collective for Black Iranians are hosting “Hasteem: We Are Here” from September 3-24, 2021. Maryam Sophia Jahanbin Content warning: enslavement, land and labor acknowledgement. Consistent with their desire to uplift South and West Asian diasporic artistic voices, Twelve Gates Arts (12G), a gallery in…
For Somalia’s Sagal Ali and Her Country’s Future, Art Triumphs Over War
Art historian Sophie Kazan speaks to Sagal Ali about the importance of art-making for the future of Somalia and her founding of the Somali Arts Foundation. Sophie Kazan Makhlouf I first came across the name of Sagal Ali and her work to rebuild the cultural sector in Somalia,…
Flagbearer of a Stateless Nation, from “Daughters of Smoke and Fire”
The following is excerpted from Chapter 14 in Ava Homa’s Daughters of Smoke and Fire and appears in TMR by gracious arrangement with the author. Ava Homa When his grandpa drew a yogurt mustache above Alan’s lips, the boy dissolved into giggles. Picturing himself with real whiskers thrilled Alan,…
Three Poems by Kashmiri American Bard Agha Shahid Ali
Agha Shahid Ali Tonight Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar —Laurence Hope Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight? Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight? Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—” “to make Me beautiful—” “Trinket”—to gem—“Me to adorn—How tell”—tonight? I…
My Amazigh Indigeneity (the Bifurcated Roots of a Native Moroccan)
Brahim El Guabli I am Amazigh, Black, and Sahrawi. Amazigh language is my mother tongue. My mother is Black, and my father is Sahrawi. The only picture I own of my maternal grandfather tells me that his roots run deep into sub-Saharan Africa. My category of Moroccan citizen has…
Why Resistance Is Foundational to Kurdish Literature
Kurdish writer Ava Homa on how statelessness, trauma and political exile shaped her novel "Daughters of Smoke and Fire."