The Watermelon Boys on Iraq, War, Colonization and Familial Love
Rachel Campbell finds that Ruqaya Izzidien's debut novel set in Iraq provides counter-narratives to the country's early 20th-century history.
Baghdad
On Ali Yass’s Die Flut (The Flood)
Berlin-based Jordanian artist and curator Ala Younis interviews Iraqi artist Ali Yass on his new work.
Exile, Music, Hope & Nostalgia Among Berlin’s Arab Immigrants
Cultural historian Diana Abbani meditates on music among Berlin's Arab immigrants.
Hawra Al-Nadawi: “Tuesday and the Green Movement”
Translator Alice Guthrie shares a preview of Al-Nadawi's exquisite 2017 novel "Qismet," a Kurdish story set in Iraq and Iran.
Film Review: Maysoon Pachachi’s “Our River…Our Sky” in Iraq
Nadje Al-Ali finds that Maysoon Pachachi’s film reflects her "long-standing commitment to highlight experiences of ordinary Iraqis, especially women."
Baghdad Art Scene Springs to Life as Iraq Seeks Renewal
Hadani Ditmars, fresh from a return trip to Iraq, surveys the burgeoning plastic arts scene.
Conversations on Food and Race with Andy Shallal
Washington DC's artist-entrepreneur-philanthropist (and one-time mayoral candidate) Andy Shallal dishes on matters of hunger and racism.
Abū Ḥamza’s Bread
In which Philip Grant muses on Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq’s tenth century cookbook, "Kitāb aṭ-Ṭabīkh" and cooking and baking 12 centuries later.
Artist Hayv Kahraman’s “Gut Feelings” Exhibition Reviewed
Melissa Chemam is swept away by an Iraqi American artist's latest exhibit at Mosaic Rooms in London.
Silver Stories from Artist Micaela Amateau Amato
Artist and writer Micaela Amateau Amato uses art and words to create unique ways of transmogrifying the world.
(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”
Arie Akkermans reviews an Iraqi American's exhibitions as they attempt to recreate missing and destroyed artifacts taken from the National Museum of Iraq after the American invasion in 2003.
Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban
On the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Hadani Ditmars remembers the treasures and the ruins of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Arab Women and The Thousand and One Nights
Malu Halasa reviews a new anthology of Arab women writers on sex, love and lust, including "the leading lights of modern Arab fiction: Hanan al-Shaykh, Adhaf Soueif, Leila Slimani and Adania Shibli."
In Search of Knowledge, Mazid Travels to Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, Granada and Córdoba
Reviewer Eman Quotah finds that Omaima Al-Khamis' "singular imagination shines through in an erudite and sensual tale that captures a complex moment in Islamic history."
The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era
Hadani Ditmars remembers what Baghdad was like following the second Gulf War in 2003, when she toured Abu Ghraib with Robert Fisk.