“The Long Walk of the Martyr”—fiction from Salar Abdoh

Revolutionary soldiers, fighters, martyrs' mural in downtown Tehran outside old US embassy (photo Jack Malipan).

2 JULY 2023 • By Salar Abdoh 2 JULY 2023 • By Salar Abdoh
Men return from war and find it difficult adjusting to the life and country they left behind.

 

Salar Abdoh

 

Seyed Hasan held his breath and took a shot that reverberated through all of Nineveh province. No one had taught him by-the-book counter-sniping; rather, he just sort of picked it up through trial and error. Those two years in the ditches of northern Iraq, while I tried to take notes for my damn book, Seyed Hasan, who barely reached my shoulders, would crawl into the spaces no one else had the stomach for and do what needed to be done. The shot that would finally bring down the Chechen “Ghost” would be the talk of the Hashd forces long after our war was over and we had buried our dead and returned to Tehran.

I did what anyone does back home. I drank. Hesitantly at first, and ashamed. Then the floodgates opened. Soon every arak dealer between Imam Khomeini Boulevard and Motahari had my number. Whenever I went online, there would be a fresh funeral for another martyr back there in Iraq. People we’d known. I’d believed the war was over. So why the dying this late?

The war was never completely over.

I drank more.

Until one day Seyed Hasan showed up at my door.

“Arash, you smell like blasphemy.”

“I feel like it.”

He had never been to my place. In general, back in Tehran I tried to keep my distance from the vets of Iraq and Syria. Most of them came from working-class families, and God was their thing. God was my thing too, lately. But only because I’d been having intimations of mortality, and not having God around seemed like a losing proposition.

I said, “I don’t know how to live with peace, Seyed jaan.”

He began weeping right there at the window, which overlooked the synagogue across the street.

It was a Saturday, and it was the month of Ramadan. In the courtyard of the synagogue a fellow wearing a tallit was on his cellphone. I suspected he shouldn’t be on his cellphone on a Saturday, and in the synagogue at that. This was about as much as I knew about the guy’s religion and still I took it personally, with almost a mind to go over to tell him to get off the phone. Then the absurdity of it all hit me — the weeping Seyed Hasan and his legendary kill back in Iraq, my alcohol breath, and that man and his phone in the synagogue during the month of fasting in Tehran.

We were womenless men. We suffered for it. We had no money and the war had been a way out of our gloom. Now what?


 That night, Seyed Hasan rode on the back of my bike to Khayyam, near the Grand Bazaar. The area is a desert at night. A lone garbage truck might pass. Otherwise it’s just the city’s street sweepers in their yellow outfits and brooms, and the echo of their rhythmic brushing on tired asphalt.

Another old comrade, Kazem, had become one such sweeper. He said the labor was a ritual that he would never give up, and that it was for the good of the Earth. Before all this, he’d owned a hole-in-the-wall cubicle in the outer reaches of the brassworkers’ quarter in the Bazaar, where he dealt in watches and second-hand shoes. When the war came to Syria, he sold everything to go protect the holy places. In Samarra he fed us, the Iranian contingent, until his money ran out, believing all the while that martyrdom was near and he wouldn’t have to return to Tehran and face the wasteland of no war and no cubicle in the Bazaar.

No such luck.

“Brother Arash, they don’t make posters for the living,” Kazem was saying. He tousled Seyed Hasan’s hair. They’d been inseparable in Iraq, and both had nearly caught it in Syria. Yet here they were, alive and therefore unlucky. “Did you ever finish that book about the war?” he asked.

“Working on it.”

“He drinks,” Seyed Hasan said, ratting on me. “Alcohol.”

“Is this true?”

“I’ve been having a bad season for the last few months. I apologize.”

The three of us looked up simultaneously across the street at the enormous poster of our late commander. His posters had been on display everywhere since winter, when he had been assassinated back in Baghdad. In this poster he looked positively angelic, his determined, angular face burdened with something from the next world, the khaki of his uniform slightly faded as if he was still on a long desert march.

That night I spent with Kazem and Seyed Hasan in the broken place they rented below the Shush district. The place had missing windows, and any Shush junkie could have stepped in to help themselves to nothing. But the half-dozen men who lived there, all of them vets of Syria/Iraq, were not nothing. They’d teach you a lesson if you crossed them. They, too, hadn’t had the luck of martyrdom, and they weren’t celebrated back home for having protected or defended anything. The world had passed them by. I was one of them, except I still believed some book might come out of my troubles. No such luck yet. I had a side job teaching conversational Iraqi Arabic, and that was about it. There was also a club where they’d needed a sharpshooting coach for the rich bastards who lived uptown and didn’t know how to spend their money fast enough. But there were only air guns, the ammo just BB pellets, and the first time I stuck the barrel of the gun in my mouth to chase boredom away the owner politely said that I was fired — you’re not setting the proper example.

I couldn’t argue with that.

Before sunrise, Seyed Hasan woke me up. He had some dates and flatbread and tea for us for our sahari.

“I don’t fast, brother,” I told him. “The month of Ramadan and me, we’re not intimates.”

He eyeballed me. In the tired quiet of Shush, three other veterans were up finishing their brief morning prayers. Kazem slept. He’d sleep right through the day and eat after sunset, before going back to sweep on Khayyam and the wide cobblestone walkway of the Grand Bazaar.

“Is this why we fought? Look at us.”

What could I tell him? A fellow can have a thousand and one reasons for going off to die. If he’s not lucky enough to get his wish, he’s not lucky. Nothing to be done about that.

“Arash, tell me please, is this why we fought? I don’t have a job. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have a future. Our Sardar is dead and they have his posters everywhere. I don’t even have a poster.”

“You want a poster of you? I’ll make you a fucking poster. What do you want me to say?”

“Why did the Americans have to assassinate him?”

“Because he was good at what he did. The best field commander there ever was. He kicked their asses and they were jealous of him.”

“We really were the best, Arash. Weren’t we?”

“We were pretty damn good. You, my friend, were great.”

“Now I live in a half-abandoned building in Shush and push a cart in the Bazaar all day. Do you know how much I make every day?”

“How much, my brother?”

He burst into tears again. The other vets, breaking bread now, turned for a moment to look at us. Then they turned back to chewing in silence.


 Abu Amin was apparently coming from Baghdad. This was the gist of our misery. We loved Abu Amin. An Iraqi, he’d been specifically in charge of intelligence for us Iranians operating in northern Iraq and the Syrian border. Mostly he humored us, and tried to make sure we didn’t get ourselves killed. In this effort, his aims and ours were somewhat at odds. But we loved him anyway. During the war he had had the flair of a man engaged in important things. Now he was reduced to coming to Tehran to have his poorly functioning heart operated on. He had written to me and some other guys that he wanted to see us, and that he’d be a guest at Majid Safi’s house.

It was this guy, Majid Safi, that was the real issue. Safi had inherited a cloth business from his baba in one of the prime locations at the smaller Bazaar of Tajrish, in the north end of the city. I’d been there a few times after we all came back, and Safi, imagining I was going to make him the hero of whatever I had been prepaid to write, had invited me up there and fed me kebab and rice. You could say that Kazem, our street-sweeping brother, and Safi were martyrdom’s truth and lie. Whereas Kazem had sold the shirt off his back to go to Iraq and Syria to die, Safi had simply closed up shop for six months to go and pretend he wanted to die. He got a hero’s welcome on his return, while Seyed Hasan and Kazem got a place you wouldn’t want to take for free in Shush. In the spice-sellers’ quarter of Tajrish, I’d overheard a woman consider the mound of turmeric in front of her and opine to the merchant that Majid Safi was one of the most desirable bachelors around.

The fact that Abu Amin had come from Baghdad to stay with Safi was a punch in the gut. But where else was he going to stay? In Shush? Or in my dilapidated one-bedroom across from the synagogue?

Seyed Hasan said, “I could kill Safi, you know.”

“You mean you have that kind of sentiment toward him in general, or that you want to really kill, as in kill, him?”

“The second, brother Arash.”

“Because he has money?”

“Because he came to defend the holy places for all the wrong reasons.”

“You could say the same about me.”

“How so?”

“I had a contract to write about you guys.”

Seyed Hasan considered this.

“I can’t accept that. A man does not risk getting it from a DShK round for the sake of some words. I don’t care how much they paid you. Besides, you are just as much of a wreck now as I am. Safi, he’s not a wreck. He’s the number-one cloth merchant of Tajrish, and now he is going to be entertaining Abu Amin while we eat dirt.”

“Why not go visit him?” I suggested.

Seyed Hasan frowned. “To do what?”

“We could start by telling him we’ve come to visit Abu Amin. Our old Arab officer-in-charge belongs to all of us.”

Tajrish was packed at 9pm on a Ramadan night. This was where I’d actually grown up, on Darband Road, where the mountains begin and you can hike a few days right across that harsh terrain all the way to the Caspian Sea. It had been a childhood of snowstorms and snow days off from school. Eating warm, sweet beets in Tajrish Bazaar at nights, and running around to get lost in its maze of shops and the bottoms of women’s long black chadors. Now I hardly ever ventured so far north in the city. This much vibrancy can unsettle a man who has been tasked to write about martyrs.

The last time I was here, they’d put up a minaret-sized poster of one of our dead behind the Bazaar, at the mosque of Imamzadeh Saleh. A boy, really, this martyr. He’d been with us during the siege of Mosul, but then disappeared, and next we knew he was in Syria and his head had been severed. The cut-off head made news, and I thought: I don’t care who wants to be a martyr, I’m not writing about the cut-off head of a brother. I have red lines I won’t across.

Seyed Hasan and I pushed past the crowds at the Bazaar’s vegetable market until the crush of bodies got thinner, and we were at last standing in front of Safi’s cloth shop.

He was busy. A blown-up photograph of him, which I had taken, in uniform up by Tel Afar just before we liberated the city. He’s looking into the camera and probably thinking about the day he’ll have a life-sized copy of the picture put in his store.

Seyed Hasan said, “I don’t have the stomach for it.”

“Don’t be a child. We’ll just wait a bit.”

Women, and a few men, were lined up behind Safi’s counter, running their hands on various fabrics and asking him questions. He looked elated. Ramadan became him. I could not deny that he was handsome. His broad shoulders turning with ease every which way to deal with customers, his honeyed voice giving discounts even before being asked. He looked well-fed and darkly handsome with those thick eyelashes.

“I want his life,” Seyed Hasan murmured.

“No, you don’t.”

Seyed Hasan did not want anybody’s life; he wanted death. But on terms that would bring him immortality. I thought of that boy with the severed head whose poster I’d last seen at the Imamzadeh Saleh mosque next door.

“I’ll be back,” I told Seyed Hasan.

“Don’t leave me, Arash. Don’t leave me here to watch Majid Safi.”

“Think of it as therapy.”

“As what?”

“Think of it as facing your worst nightmares so that you can overcome them.”

“Safi is not my nightmare. He’s just someone I want to kill.”

“We’re not at war anymore.”

“I should have killed him in Iraq. Accidentally.”

This was going nowhere. I left him to his protestations and soon was standing in the wide-open space outside of Imamzadeh Saleh, with a thousand worshippers meaning to go inside. The poster of the martyr was no longer there, and I hadn’t expected it to be. It was something of a carnival here. Families drinking sherbet and tea. Spreads of food laid out everywhere. Under the wall where the martyr’s poster had been, three boys did Persian street rap for money.

The idea came as a gift. I saw him. Right above the heads of those Persian rappers with their baseball caps, loose jeans and T-shirts bearing the faces of their beloved American rap martyrs. Seyed Hasan was going to be up there on that wall. His mug, that of the freshest among those killed in a war we had imagined we’d won.

Nothing had ended. And we’d won nothing.

That night, after Safi closed up shop, he entertained us. He lied, saying that Abu Amin had not arrived from Baghdad yet. Instead he took us with him to a plush hotel with a swimming pool that he and his friends rented in the nearby Niavaran district during Ramadan. Their pretend fasting consisted of being served by the hotel staff, horseplaying in the water with each other and gorging themselves on tray after tray of food brought to them until dawn broke. After which they went home and slept off the daylight hours and the fast, only to wake up at sundown to open up their shops and imagine their version of Ramadan was going impeccably.

After an hour of watching them at the swimming pool, I sent the outraged Seyed Hasan home. Safi could not have been kinder. He would not take no for an answer, and had the hotel wrap several plates of rice and meat and chicken and sweets to be sent along in a cab that he ordered for Seyed Hasan.

“You’re not coming?”

“I still have some business with Safi here.”

Seyed Hasan gestured at the half-dozen young men laughing, splashing in the water, and swimming to the edges of the pool to stuff themselves on the rich trays of grapes and lamb stew and pastries. In the one hour that we had been there, not one of Safi’s friends, all of them sons of rich Bazaar merchants, had so much as acknowledged our presence. We were invisible. Peace — the absence of war — had made us that way.

“What possible business can you have here? Look at them. These guys make a mockery of Ramadan. They eat all night and sleep all day and call that fasting.”

I thought he was going to burst into tears again.

“Go home, Seyed jaan.”

“Home? That no-place in Shush?”

“We were in worse places in Iraq.”

“That was war.”

“So is this.”

Three months later Seyed Hasan’s posters would be up around the city — the Iranian martyr and sniping legend who brought down the Chechen ace in northern Iraq.

Not every martyrdom is a negotiation, but this one was. That morning, when Safi and I left the swimming pool after he had said his goodbyes to his bloated friends, I told him, “You are a piece of shit!”

“This means you won’t make me the hero of your book?”

“Actually, it means that I will.”

“How much do you want for it?”

We stood in his shop at seven in the morning. He had come to pick up some expensive fabric to take home. I knew what he was up to. He was taking gifts from his store for Abu Amin.

“I want something else.”

“Name it.”

“Take me to Abu Amin.” When he tried to deny that Abu Amin was staying at his place, I slapped him. “Do you want to be the hero of my book or not?”

Rubbing his reddened face in shock, he said yes and reluctantly took me to the great man.

It took some convincing. Abu Amin was certainly not exactly the Abu Amin we’d known back in Iraq. But I finally managed to talk him into signing Seyed Hasan back on the books in Baghdad.

It was a jolt to see the old intelligence officer. During the dog days of the war, the convoys that escorted him never sported fewer than half a dozen pick-ups with men armed to the teeth. That was just a year ago. Now he lay flat on a couch with a keffiyeh wrapped around his head, his eyes tired and dulled.

“Why do you want to send your friend back to Baghdad?”

“Tehran is not for him, ya Abu Amin.”

“Don’t give me stupid reasons. Tell me why.”

“He needs to try his chance one more time at martyrdom.”

“The war is over.”

“You and I know, Abu Amin, this is not the case. There are plenty of pockets of trouble you could send him to.”

“To die?”

I nodded.

I saw Safi hovering just outside the living room, curious and nervous. This was about all of us. Seyed Hasan’s wish to become a poster, Safi’s to become the hero of my book about the war, mine to write the bloody thing, and Abu Amin’s to have the best care he was going to get in Tehran for his open-heart surgery.

“Consider it done,” he said.

When I tried to relay to him that Safi was going to take on any extra expense for the care he was receiving in Tehran, he put his hand up to hush me.

“I don’t want to hear about compensation. I would have done this for your friend, for Seyed Hasan, for free. I will make arrangements for him to join one of the units in Syria.”

“Dangerous?”

“Deadly.”

“Then God be praised!”

A Shiraz mural portrays martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war (courtesy Fotokon).


Four months later, when the good news came about Seyed Hasan, I had already given up trying to write the book several weeks earlier. My heart wasn’t in it. I was sure the government publisher would take me to court for it. But by then I would find more work teaching rich folks how to shoot stupid air guns so I could pay back the unearned money the regime had given me to start the project.

Abu Amin himself would only live another couple of months past Seyed Hasan. Long enough to vouch that Seyed had died a martyr’s death. I never visited Imamzadeh Saleh again to see if they had put up Seyed Hasan’s poster in that location. But I knew the posters were up in other spots in the city, since I’d been contacted about supplying a few photos of the martyr from our time in combat. I sent the pictures that I thought were suitable; then, finally, one day I ran into a poster of Seyed Hasan down by the Grand Bazaar where Kazem continued to sweep the ground at nights. It wasn’t too far from where the poster of our late commander had been, maybe seven buildings down on Khayyam. And there he was, Seyed Hasan, my dear friend and the nemesis of all the enemy snipers of the war. I had touched up the picture and purposefully faded his uniform so that the same hint of nostalgia that had suffused the commander’s poster would also accompany Seyed Hasan’s.

It was a busy day on Khayyam and the Grand Bazaar. A Wednesday. No one was paying Seyed Hasan and his poster any attention. Men fought over parking spaces. A little boy spilled his carrot juice and cried. A mother bought an electric fan.

When I went to give the good news about our Seyed’s poster to Kazem and the boys at that old Shush dump, I saw that their place was in the process of being razed to make way for a new apartment building.

I could have called Kazem and tried to find him. But I didn’t bother.

Then, on a Saturday, as I was watching the same man in the synagogue across from my apartment use his cellphone and thinking I’d go down there to talk to him about what I assumed was a religious infraction, I saw a familiar face. It was Safi, lurking outside the walls of the synagogue. I had promised him I’d call to set up an appointment for an interview about his past, his present, and his exploits in Iraq. But I had not given him another thought until now.

He looked up and our eyes met — me standing by my third floor window, and him by the wall of the synagogue, where someone had spray-painted something having to do with death to the king.

What king? This country hadn’t had a king in over forty years. Maybe “King” was someone’s nickname in the neighborhood, though I doubted it.

I retreated from my window, and Safi never rang my bell. And if he did, I didn’t hear it. The bell hadn’t worked since before the war.

 

Salar Abdoh

Salar Abdoh Salar Abdoh is an Iranian novelist, essayist and translator, who divides his time between New York and Tehran. He is the author of the novels Poet Game (2000), Opium (2004), Tehran at Twilight (2014), and Out of Mesopotamia (2020) and the editor of... Read more

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Poetry

Two Poems from Maram Al-Masri

3 MARCH 2024 • By Maram Al-Masri, Hélène Cardona
Two Poems from Maram Al-Masri
Book Reviews

Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir—A Review

19 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Nazli Tarzi
<em>Eyeliner: A Cultural History</em> by Zahra Hankir—A Review
Essays

The Oath of Cyriac: Recovery or Spin?

19 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
<em>The Oath of Cyriac</em>: Recovery or Spin?
Art

Issam Kourbaj’s Love Letter to Syria in Cambridge

12 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Sophie Kazan Makhlouf
Issam Kourbaj’s Love Letter to Syria in Cambridge
short story

“Water”—a short story by Salar Abdoh

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Salar Abdoh
“Water”—a short story by Salar Abdoh
Essays

A Treatise on Love

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Maryam Haidari, Salar Abdoh
A Treatise on Love
Books

Illuminated Reading for 2024: Our Anticipated Titles

22 JANUARY 2024 • By TMR
Illuminated Reading for 2024: Our Anticipated Titles
Book Reviews

An Iranian Novelist Seeks the Truth About a Plane Crash

15 JANUARY 2024 • By Sepideh Farkhondeh
An Iranian Novelist Seeks the Truth About a Plane Crash
Film

Religious Misogyny Personified in Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider

11 DECEMBER 2023 • By Bavand Karim
Religious Misogyny Personified in Ali Abbasi’s <em>Holy Spider</em>
Beirut

“The Summer They Heard Music”—a short story by MK Harb

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By MK Harb
“The Summer They Heard Music”—a short story by MK Harb
Fiction

“The Waiting Bones”—an essay by Maryam Haidari

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Maryam Haidari, Salar Abdoh
“The Waiting Bones”—an essay by Maryam Haidari
Essays

“My Father’s Last Meal”—a Kurdish Tale

28 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Dilan Qadir
“My Father’s Last Meal”—a Kurdish Tale
Book Reviews

First Kurdish Sci-Fi Collection is Rooted in the Past

28 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Matt Broomfield
First Kurdish Sci-Fi Collection is Rooted in the Past
Opinion

Gaza vs. Mosul from a Medical and Humanitarian Standpoint

27 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Ahmed Twaij
Gaza vs. Mosul from a Medical and Humanitarian Standpoint
Fiction

Bahar: 22 years in the Life of a Compulsory Hijabi in Teheran

20 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Joumana Haddad
Bahar: 22 years in the Life of a Compulsory Hijabi in Teheran
Art & Photography

Iranian Women Photographers: Life, Freedom, Music, Art & Hair

20 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Malu Halasa
Iranian Women Photographers: Life, Freedom, Music, Art & Hair
Art & Photography

War and Art: A Lebanese Photographer and His Protégés

13 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Nicole Hamouche
War and Art: A Lebanese Photographer and His Protégés
Book Reviews

Suad Aldarra’s I Don’t Want to Talk About Home

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Ammar Azzouz
Suad Aldarra’s <em>I Don’t Want to Talk About Home</em>
Book Reviews

The Refugee Ocean—An Intriguing Premise

30 OCTOBER 2023 • By Natasha Tynes
<em>The Refugee Ocean</em>—An Intriguing Premise
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
Art & Photography

Middle Eastern Artists and Galleries at Frieze London

23 OCTOBER 2023 • By Sophie Kazan Makhlouf
Middle Eastern Artists and Galleries at Frieze London
Weekly

World Picks from the Editors, Oct 13 — Oct 27, 2023

12 OCTOBER 2023 • By TMR
World Picks from the Editors, Oct 13 — Oct 27, 2023
Poetry

Home: New Arabic Poems in Translation

11 OCTOBER 2023 • By Sarah Coolidge
<em>Home</em>: New Arabic Poems in Translation
Book Reviews

Reza Aslan’s An American Martyr in Persia Argues for US-Iranian Friendship

1 OCTOBER 2023 • By Dalia Sofer
Reza Aslan’s <em>An American Martyr in Persia</em> Argues for US-Iranian Friendship
Art

Special World Picks Sept 15-26 on TMR’s Third Anniversary

14 SEPTEMBER 2023 • By TMR
Special World Picks Sept 15-26 on TMR’s Third Anniversary
Essays

A Day in the Life with Forugh Farrokhzad (and a Tortoise)

3 SEPTEMBER 2023 • By Fargol Malekpoosh
A Day in the Life with Forugh Farrokhzad (and a Tortoise)
Book Reviews

On Museums and the Preservation of Cultural Heritage

21 AUGUST 2023 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
On Museums and the Preservation of Cultural Heritage
Book Reviews

Can the Kurdish Women’s Movement Transform the Middle East?

31 JULY 2023 • By Matt Broomfield
Can the Kurdish Women’s Movement Transform the Middle East?
Film Reviews

A Deaf Boy’s Quest to Find His Voice in a Hearing World

24 JULY 2023 • By Nazli Tarzi
A Deaf Boy’s Quest to Find His Voice in a Hearing World
Interviews

Musical Artists at Work: Naïssam Jalal, Fazil Say & Azu Tiwaline

17 JULY 2023 • By Jordan Elgrably
Musical Artists at Work: Naïssam Jalal, Fazil Say & Azu Tiwaline
Book Reviews

Why Isn’t Ghaith Abdul-Ahad a Household Name?

10 JULY 2023 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Why Isn’t Ghaith Abdul-Ahad a Household Name?
Fiction

Arrival in the Dark—fiction from Alireza Iranmehr

2 JULY 2023 • By Alireza Iranmehr, Salar Abdoh
Arrival in the Dark—fiction from Alireza Iranmehr
Fiction

“Here, Freedom”—fiction from Danial Haghighi

2 JULY 2023 • By Danial Haghighi, Salar Abdoh
“Here, Freedom”—fiction from Danial Haghighi
Essays

Zahhāk: An Etiology of Evil

2 JULY 2023 • By Omid Arabian
Zahhāk: An Etiology of Evil
Fiction

“The Long Walk of the Martyr”—fiction from Salar Abdoh

2 JULY 2023 • By Salar Abdoh
“The Long Walk of the Martyr”—fiction from Salar Abdoh
Featured Artist

Artist at Work: Syrian Filmmaker Afraa Batous

26 JUNE 2023 • By Dima Hamdan
Artist at Work: Syrian Filmmaker Afraa Batous
Book Reviews

Wounded Tigris: A River Journey Through the Cradle of Civilisation

12 JUNE 2023 • By Nazli Tarzi
<em>Wounded Tigris: A River Journey Through the Cradle of Civilisation</em>
Editorial

EARTH: Our Only Home

4 JUNE 2023 • By Jordan Elgrably
EARTH: Our Only Home
Essays

Turkey’s Earthquake as a Generational Disaster

4 JUNE 2023 • By Sanem Su Avci
Turkey’s Earthquake as a Generational Disaster
Islam

From Pawns to Global Powers: Middle East Nations Strike Back

29 MAY 2023 • By Chas Freeman, Jr.
From Pawns to Global Powers: Middle East Nations Strike Back
Book Reviews

The Yellow Birds Author Returns With Iraq War/Noir Mystery

29 MAY 2023 • By Hamilton Cain
<em>The Yellow Birds</em> Author Returns With Iraq War/Noir Mystery
Music

Artist At Work: Maya Youssef Finds Home in the Qanun

22 MAY 2023 • By Rana Asfour
Artist At Work: Maya Youssef Finds Home in the Qanun
Film

The Refugees by the Lake, a Greek Migrant Story

8 MAY 2023 • By Iason Athanasiadis
The Refugees by the Lake, a Greek Migrant Story
Photography

Iran on the Move—Photos by Peyman Hooshmandzadeh

1 MAY 2023 • By Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, Malu Halasa
Iran on the Move—Photos by Peyman Hooshmandzadeh
Book Reviews

Hard Work: Kurdish Kolbars or Porters Risk Everything

1 MAY 2023 • By Clive Bell
Hard Work: Kurdish <em>Kolbars</em> or Porters Risk Everything
Film

Hanging Gardens and the New Iraqi Cinema Scene

27 MARCH 2023 • By Laura Silvia Battaglia
<em>Hanging Gardens</em> and the New Iraqi Cinema Scene
Centerpiece

Broken Home: Britain in the Time of Migration

5 MARCH 2023 • By Malu Halasa
Broken Home: Britain in the Time of Migration
Fiction

“Counter Strike”—a story by MK HARB

5 MARCH 2023 • By MK Harb
“Counter Strike”—a story by MK HARB
Cities

For Those Who Dwell in Tents, Home is Temporal—Or Is It?

5 MARCH 2023 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
For Those Who Dwell in Tents, Home is Temporal—Or Is It?
Cities

The Odyssey That Forged a Stronger Athenian

5 MARCH 2023 • By Iason Athanasiadis
The Odyssey That Forged a Stronger Athenian
Columns

Letter From Turkey—Antioch is Finished

20 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Letter From Turkey—Antioch is Finished
Book Reviews

White Torture Prison Interviews Condemn Solitary Confinement

13 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Kamin Mohammadi
<em>White Torture</em> Prison Interviews Condemn Solitary Confinement
Columns

Tiba al-Ali: A Death Foretold on Social Media

5 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Malu Halasa
Tiba al-Ali: A Death Foretold on Social Media
Featured excerpt

Fiction: Inaam Kachachi’s The Dispersal, or Tashari

5 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Inaam Kachachi
Fiction: Inaam Kachachi’s <em>The Dispersal</em>, or <em>Tashari</em>
Art

Lahib Jaddo—An Iraqi Artist in the Diaspora

5 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Mischa Geracoulis
Lahib Jaddo—An Iraqi Artist in the Diaspora
Interviews

Zahra Ali, Pioneer of Feminist Studies on Iraq

5 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Nada Ghosn
Zahra Ali, Pioneer of Feminist Studies on Iraq
Book Reviews

 The Watermelon Boys on Iraq, War, Colonization and Familial Love

5 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Rachel Campbell
<em> The Watermelon Boys</em> on Iraq, War, Colonization and Familial Love
Columns

Letters From Tehran: Braving Tehran’s Roundabout, Maidan Valiasr

30 JANUARY 2023 • By TMR
Letters From Tehran: Braving Tehran’s Roundabout, Maidan Valiasr
Book Reviews

Editor’s Picks: Magical Realism in Iranian Lit

30 JANUARY 2023 • By Rana Asfour
Editor’s Picks: Magical Realism in Iranian Lit
Featured article

Don’t Be a Stooge for the Regime—Iranians Reject State-Controlled Media!

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Malu Halasa
Don’t Be a Stooge for the Regime—Iranians Reject State-Controlled Media!
Columns

Siri Hustvedt & Ahdaf Souief Write Letters to Imprisoned Writer Narges Mohammadi

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By TMR
Siri Hustvedt & Ahdaf Souief Write Letters to Imprisoned Writer Narges Mohammadi
Film

The Swimmers and the Mardini Sisters: a True Liberation Tale

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Rana Haddad
<em>The Swimmers</em> and the Mardini Sisters: a True Liberation Tale
Music

Revolutionary Hit Parade: 12+1 Protest Songs from Iran

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Malu Halasa
Revolutionary Hit Parade: 12+1 Protest Songs from Iran
Film

Imprisoned Director Jafar Panahi’s No Bears

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Clive Bell
Imprisoned Director Jafar Panahi’s <em>No Bears</em>
Art

Museums in Exile—MO.CO’s show for Chile, Sarajevo & Palestine

12 DECEMBER 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
Museums in Exile—MO.CO’s show for Chile, Sarajevo & Palestine
Opinion

Historic Game on the Horizon: US Faces Iran Once More

28 NOVEMBER 2022 • By Mireille Rebeiz
Film

You Resemble Me Deconstructs a Muslim Life That Ends Radically

21 NOVEMBER 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
<em>You Resemble Me</em> Deconstructs a Muslim Life That Ends Radically
Opinion

Fragile Freedom, Fragile States in the Muslim World

24 OCTOBER 2022 • By I. Rida Mahmood
Fragile Freedom, Fragile States in the Muslim World
Opinion

Letter From Tehran: On the Pain of Others, Once Again

24 OCTOBER 2022 • By Sara Mokhavat
Letter From Tehran: On the Pain of Others, Once Again
Poetry

The Heroine Forugh Farrokhzad—”Only Voice Remains”

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By Sholeh Wolpé
The Heroine Forugh Farrokhzad—”Only Voice Remains”
Art

#MahsaAmini—Art by Rachid Bouhamidi, Los Angeles

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By Rachid Bouhamidi
#MahsaAmini—Art by Rachid Bouhamidi, Los Angeles
Art & Photography

Homage to Mahsa Jhina Amini & the Women-Led Call for Freedom

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By TMR
Homage to Mahsa Jhina Amini & the Women-Led Call for Freedom
Art

Defiance—an essay from Sara Mokhavat

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By Sara Mokhavat, Salar Abdoh
Defiance—an essay from Sara Mokhavat
Essays

Nawal El-Saadawi, a Heroine in Prison

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By Ibrahim Fawzy
Nawal El-Saadawi, a Heroine in Prison
Book Reviews

A London Murder Mystery Leads to Jihadis and Syria

3 OCTOBER 2022 • By Ghazi Gheblawi
A London Murder Mystery Leads to Jihadis and Syria
Art & Photography

Kader Attia, Berlin Biennale’s Curator

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Kader Attia, Berlin Biennale’s Curator
Film

Ziad Kalthoum: Trajectory of a Syrian Filmmaker

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Viola Shafik
Ziad Kalthoum: Trajectory of a Syrian Filmmaker
Film

The Mystery of Tycoon Michel Baida in Old Arab Berlin

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Irit Neidhardt
The Mystery of Tycoon Michel Baida in Old Arab Berlin
Art & Photography

Shirin Mohammad: Portrait of an Artist Between Berlin & Tehran

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Noushin Afzali
Shirin Mohammad: Portrait of an Artist Between Berlin & Tehran
Book Reviews

After Nine Years in Detention, an Iraqi is Finally Granted Asylum

22 AUGUST 2022 • By Rana Asfour
After Nine Years in Detention, an Iraqi is Finally Granted Asylum
Film

Two Syrian Brothers Find Themselves in “We Are From There”

22 AUGUST 2022 • By Angélique Crux
Two Syrian Brothers Find Themselves in “We Are From There”
Columns

Salman Rushdie, Aziz Nesin and our Lingering Fatwas

22 AUGUST 2022 • By Sahand Sahebdivani
Salman Rushdie, Aziz Nesin and our Lingering Fatwas
Book Reviews

Questionable Thinking on the Syrian Revolution

1 AUGUST 2022 • By Fouad Mami
Questionable Thinking on the Syrian Revolution
Art

Abundant Middle Eastern Talent at the ’22 Avignon Theatre Fest

18 JULY 2022 • By Nada Ghosn
Abundant Middle Eastern Talent at the ’22 Avignon Theatre Fest
Editorial

Editorial: Is the World Driving Us Mad?

15 JULY 2022 • By TMR
Editorial: Is the World Driving Us Mad?
Centerpiece

Big Laleh, Little Laleh—memoir by Shokouh Moghimi

15 JULY 2022 • By Shokouh Moghimi, Salar Abdoh
Big Laleh, Little Laleh—memoir by Shokouh Moghimi
Book Reviews

Leaving One’s Country in Mai Al-Nakib’s “An Unlasting Home”

27 JUNE 2022 • By Rana Asfour
Leaving One’s Country in Mai Al-Nakib’s “An Unlasting Home”
Columns

World Refugee Day — What We Owe Each Other

20 JUNE 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
World Refugee Day — What We Owe Each Other
Fiction

Mai Al-Nakib: “Naaseha’s Counsel”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Mai Al-Nakib
Mai Al-Nakib: “Naaseha’s Counsel”
Featured excerpt

Hawra Al-Nadawi: “Tuesday and the Green Movement”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Hawra Al-Nadawi, Alice Guthrie
Hawra Al-Nadawi: “Tuesday and the Green Movement”
Book Reviews

Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”

16 MAY 2022 • By Nora Lester Murad
Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”
Interviews

Conversations on Food and Race with Andy Shallal

15 APRIL 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
Conversations on Food and Race with Andy Shallal
Book Reviews

Abū Ḥamza’s Bread

15 APRIL 2022 • By Philip Grant
Abū Ḥamza’s Bread
Columns

Not Just Any Rice: Persian Kateh over Chelo

15 APRIL 2022 • By Maryam Mortaz, A.J. Naddaff
Not Just Any Rice: Persian Kateh over Chelo
Columns

Libyan, Palestinian and Syrian Family Dinners in London

15 APRIL 2022 • By Layla Maghribi
Libyan, Palestinian and Syrian Family Dinners in London
Art

Artist Hayv Kahraman’s “Gut Feelings” Exhibition Reviewed

28 MARCH 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Artist Hayv Kahraman’s “Gut Feelings” Exhibition Reviewed
Essays

Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing

17 MARCH 2022 • By Neve Gordon, Nicola Perugini
Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing
Poetry

Three Poems of Love and Desire by Nouri Al-Jarrah

15 MARCH 2022 • By Nouri Al-Jarrah
Three Poems of Love and Desire by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Art

Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes

15 MARCH 2022 • By Khalil Younes
Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes
Latest Reviews

Three Love Poems by Rumi, Translated by Haleh Liza Gafori

15 MARCH 2022 • By Haleh Liza Gafori
Three Love Poems by Rumi, Translated by Haleh Liza Gafori
Opinion

Ukraine War Reminds Refugees Some Are More Equal Than Others

7 MARCH 2022 • By Anna Lekas Miller
Ukraine War Reminds Refugees Some Are More Equal Than Others
Book Reviews

Nadia Murad Speaks on Behalf of Women Heroes of War

7 MARCH 2022 • By Maryam Zar
Nadia Murad Speaks on Behalf of Women Heroes of War
Columns

“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”

24 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”
Art

(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”

7 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”
Editorial

Refuge, or the Inherent Dignity of Every Human Being

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
Refuge, or the Inherent Dignity of Every Human Being
Art & Photography

Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay
Columns

Getting to the Other Side: a Kurdish Migrant Story

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Getting to the Other Side: a Kurdish Migrant Story
Film Reviews

“Europa,” Iraq’s Entry in the 94th annual Oscars, Frames Epic Refugee Struggle

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Thomas Dallal
“Europa,” Iraq’s Entry in the 94th annual Oscars, Frames Epic Refugee Struggle
Art & Photography

Refugees of Afghanistan in Iran: a Photo Essay by Peyman Hooshmandzadeh

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, Salar Abdoh
Refugees of Afghanistan in Iran: a Photo Essay by Peyman Hooshmandzadeh
Book Reviews

Meditations on The Ungrateful Refugee

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour
Meditations on <em>The Ungrateful Refugee</em>
Fiction

Fiction: Refugees in Serbia, an excerpt from “Silence is a Sense” by Layla AlAmmar

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Layla AlAmmar
Fiction: Refugees in Serbia, an excerpt from “Silence is a Sense” by Layla AlAmmar
Book Reviews

Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world

10 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour
Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world
Columns

An Arab and a Jew Walk into a Bar…

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
An Arab and a Jew Walk into a Bar…
Interviews

The Fabulous Omid Djalili on Good Times and the World

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
The Fabulous Omid Djalili on Good Times and the World
Fiction

Three Levantine Tales

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Nouha Homad
Three Levantine Tales
Essays

Syria Through British Eyes

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Rana Haddad
Syria Through British Eyes
Columns

Burning Forests, Burning Nations

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
Burning Forests, Burning Nations
Book Reviews

The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?
Essays

A Street in Marrakesh Revisited

8 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Deborah Kapchan
A Street in Marrakesh Revisited
Columns

Refugees Detained in Thessonaliki’s Diavata Camp Await Asylum

1 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Refugees Detained in Thessonaliki’s Diavata Camp Await Asylum
Art

Guantánamo—The World’s Most Infamous Prison

15 OCTOBER 2021 • By Sarah Mirk
<em>Guantánamo</em>—The World’s Most Infamous Prison
Interviews

Interview With Prisoner X, Accused by the Bashar Al-Assad Regime of Terrorism

15 OCTOBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Interview With Prisoner X, Accused by the Bashar Al-Assad Regime of Terrorism
Art & Photography

Hasteem, We Are Here: The Collective for Black Iranians

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Maryam Sophia Jahanbin
Hasteem, We Are Here: The Collective for Black Iranians
Essays

Why Resistance Is Foundational to Kurdish Literature

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Ava Homa
Why Resistance Is Foundational to Kurdish Literature
Featured excerpt

The Harrowing Life of Kurdish Freedom Activist Kobra Banehi

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Kobra Banehi, Jordan Elgrably
The Harrowing Life of Kurdish Freedom Activist Kobra Banehi
Columns

Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban

16 AUGUST 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban
Latest Reviews

Women Comic Artists, from Afghanistan to Morocco

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Sherine Hamdy
Women Comic Artists, from Afghanistan to Morocco
Weekly

World Picks: August 2021

12 AUGUST 2021 • By Lawrence Joffe
World Picks: August 2021
Weekly

Summer of ‘21 Reading—Notes from the Editors

25 JULY 2021 • By TMR
Summer of ‘21 Reading—Notes from the Editors
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

World Picks: July 2021

3 JULY 2021 • By TMR
World Picks: July 2021
Essays

Syria’s Ruling Elite— A Master Class in Wasta

14 JUNE 2021 • By Lawrence Joffe
Syria’s Ruling Elite— A Master Class in Wasta
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
Art

The Murals of “Education is Not a Crime”

14 MAY 2021 • By Saleem Vaillancourt
The Murals of “Education is Not a Crime”
Essays

We Are All at the Border Now

14 MAY 2021 • By Todd Miller
We Are All at the Border Now
Essays

From Damascus to Birmingham, a Selected Glossary

14 MAY 2021 • By Frances Zaid
From Damascus to Birmingham, a Selected Glossary
Weekly

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

9 MAY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
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?

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?

Poetry Against the State

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

The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era

14 MARCH 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era
Columns

Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim

14 MARCH 2021 • By Claire Launchbury
Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim
Poetry

The Freedom You Want

14 MARCH 2021 • By Mohja Kahf
The Freedom You Want
TMR 6 • Revolutions

The Revolution Sees its Shadow 10 Years Later

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Mischa Geracoulis
The Revolution Sees its Shadow 10 Years Later
TMR 6 • Revolutions

Ten Years of Hope and Blood

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Robert Solé
Ten Years of Hope and Blood
TMR 5 • Water

Watch Water Films & Donate to Water Organizations

16 JANUARY 2021 • By TMR
Watch Water Films & Donate to Water Organizations
TMR 5 • Water

Iraq and the Arab World on the Edge of the Abyss

14 JANUARY 2021 • By Osama Esber
Iraq and the Arab World on the Edge of the Abyss
Columns

On American Democracy and Empire, a Corrective

14 JANUARY 2021 • By I. Rida Mahmood
On American Democracy and Empire, a Corrective
Film Reviews

Muhammad Malas, Syria’s Auteur, is the subject of a Film Biography

10 JANUARY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Muhammad Malas, Syria’s Auteur, is the subject of a Film Biography
TMR 4 • Small & Indie Presses

Hassan Blasim’s “God 99”

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Hassan Blasim
Hassan Blasim’s “God 99”
TMR 4 • Small & Indie Presses

Trembling Landscapes: Between Reality and Fiction: Eleven Artists from the Middle East*

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Nat Muller
Trembling Landscapes: Between Reality and Fiction: Eleven Artists from the Middle East*
TMR 4 • Small & Indie Presses

Freedom is femininity: Faraj Bayrakdar

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Faraj Bayrakdar
Freedom is femininity: Faraj Bayrakdar
Weekly

Kuwait’s Alanoud Alsharekh, Feminist Groundbreaker

6 DECEMBER 2020 • By Nada Ghosn
Kuwait’s Alanoud Alsharekh, Feminist Groundbreaker
World Picks

World Art, Music & Zoom Beat the Pandemic Blues

28 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Malu Halasa
World Art, Music & Zoom Beat the Pandemic Blues
World Picks

Interlink Proposes 4 New Arab Novels

22 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By TMR
Interlink Proposes 4 New Arab Novels

1 thought on ““The Long Walk of the Martyr”—fiction from Salar Abdoh”

  1. The story touches down to the very existence of what makes us human in the un breakable Bond of men forged in war

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