A visual poem from Hala Alyan: Gaza
A spoken word poem from the author of The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Arsonists' City.
The Imagination Interviews
France’s Fake Islamo-Leftist Crisis
One of France's prime "Islamo-leftist" suspects, Raphaël Liogier, explains why the term does not apply and what the true danger is (hint: it's not Islam).
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.
Censorship by Assassination: the Danger of Reporting in Afghanistan
Independent journalist Charlie Faulkner files a chilling story from Kabul on the lethal campaign to silence Afghan reporters.
Poet in Pakistan: the Flamboyant Carolyn Kizer
Biographer Marian Janssen reveals the big, brash, blonde feminist writer and poet Carolyn Kizer, who fascinated and shocked Pakistanis—and introduced the ghazal to America.
Poetry Against the State
Gil Anidjar reviews A Bibliography for After Jews and Arabs, and suggests that "our problem is that we have stopped listening to the poets."
The Short, Happy Life of Shirley Thompson
Novelist Preeta Samarasan believes that the greatest truths reside more often in fiction than in fact.
Two Poems for Truth by Ammiel Alcalay
Two new poems by Ammiel Alcalay, "Kashoggi or Kashog-ji?" and "Translation Theory", explore versions of the truth.
Allah and the American Dream
Rayyan Al-Shawaf reviews The Bad Muslim Discount, the second novel from Syed Masood, but isn't sure he likes its happy ending.
The Crash, Covid-19 and Other Iranian Stories
Malu Halasa reviews the new graphic novel by former political prisoner and editorial cartoonist Mana Neyestani, released in 2021 by IranWire.com.
Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim
Claire Launchbury writes of one man's long search for the truth about Lebanon's civil war, cut short by his mysterious murder this year.
On Literacy and the Lack Thereof
Marcus Gilroy-Ware, the author of After the Fact, The Truth About Fake News, warns that literacy and numeracy are on the wain.
The New Gatekeepers: How proprietary algorithms increasingly determine the news we see
Would you trust an algorithm to sell you a used car? Andy Lee Roth peers under the hood of Big Tech and finds plenty we should be worrying about.
Truth or Dare? Reinterpreting Al-Harīrī’s Arab Rogue
Farah Abdessamad reviews a new English translation of Impostures from Basra-born Al-Hariri that revives the "eloquent rogue" genre of classical Arabic literature.