Weekly

Three stories published every Friday

Joumana Haddad’s The Book of Queens: a Review

Laila Halaby on the new novel from Lebanon's multilingual feminist poet and powerhouse.

18 APRIL 2022 • By Laila Halaby

Zajal — the Darija Poets of Morocco

Author and Darija translator Deborah Kapchan recalls her friendship with two of Morocco's greatest contemporary poets.

11 APRIL 2022 • By Deborah Kapchan

A Miscarriage of Justice in the Case of Mahmood Hussain Mattan

Rana Asfour reviews the Booker Prize-nominated novel by Nadifa Mohamed based on the true story of a wrongly-convicted Somali in 1950s Cardiff.

07 MARCH 2022 • By Rana Asfour

Fadi Zaghmout’s banned-in-Jordan “Laila”: a TMR Valentine

In this excerpt of the banned Jordanian novel "Laila," introduced by Rana Asfour and translated by Hajer Almosleh, readers get a sense of Fadi Zaghmout's prose and purpose.

14 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Fadi Zaghmout, Rana Asfour

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

Rana Asfour provides an intimate look at two new Arab novels in translation, from Lebanese and Syrian authors.

10 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour

Sudden Journeys: From Munich with Love and Realpolitik

A family tragedy (we all have them), powerful forms of devotion and love, and a common political approach to “defeated peoples” in the world—all revisited over a weekend in Munich.

27 DECEMBER 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi

Sudden Journeys: The Villa Salameh Bequest

Jenine Abboushi inaugurates a new monthly column with a story about a prominent family that lost everything in Palestine.

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi

From Jerusalem to a Kingdom by the Sea

Rana Asfour reviews a new memoir about the legendary Dajani family, charged by a Turkish sultan with watching over King David's Tomb in Jerusalem, but exiled in 1948.

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Rana Asfour

Syria Through British Eyes

British-Syrian novelist Rana Haddad compares her experience growing up in Syria with the way people beyond Syria's borders see her country.

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Rana Haddad

Three Banned Saudi Novels Everyone Should Read

Despite its repressive regimes, Saudi Arabia has produced a number of world-class novelists — several of whom have seen their best work banned. Rana Asfour reviews three in English translation.

22 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Rana Asfour

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…

04 OCTOBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably

In Flawed Democracies, White Supremacy and Ethnocentrism Flourish

The author of The Unchosen: The Lives of Israel's New Others contrasts American white supremacy with Israeli Jewish racism.

01 AUGUST 2021 • By Mya Guarnieri
Scroll to Top