From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction—The Christmas Party
I laugh. My laugh, this thing that sounds better on somebody else.
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Posts Tagged: middle east
On Trauma, Memory, and Language: Talking with Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi discusses her new novel, SAVAGE TONGUES.
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The Worlds We Inhabit: Home: New Arabic Poems
These writers expand the meaning of the word home by virtue of their lives and their writing.
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Pursuing the Unattainable: A Conversation with Zaina Arafat
Zaina Arafat discusses her debut novel, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH.
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What to Read When You Need to Know SWANA
SWANA writers share recommendations for what to read to gain perspective on the region.
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Terror Is a Faggot with Halal Sausages Strapped to His Chest
Dishonesty became a form of protection.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #96: Voices of Displacement
Thank God music has wings and it can fly wherever, even countries we can’t reach.
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On the Futility of Defying Extinction
Always, when my father spoke to me in words I could not understand, my guilt spoke back.
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Mindful Witnesses: Three Books from New Directions
Barbara Berman reviews work by Dunya Mikhail, Thomas Merton, and Robert Lax.
...moreThis Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country.
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The Story We Have Yet to Tell: Talking with Haroon Moghul
Haroon Moghul discusses How to Be a Muslim: An American Story, his own religious journey, and the blessings that come with being an outsider.
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Nothing Foreign about It: Talking with Omar El Akkad
Omar El Akkad discusses his debut novel American War, suicide terrorism, fossil fuels, and blankets.
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Death, Satan, and Cats: A Conversation with Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine discusses his newest novel, The Angel of History, surviving the AIDS epidemic, and the role of religion in his life and writing.
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Wisdom Is a Double-Edged Sword: Talking with Jay Baron Nicorvo
Jay Baron Nicorvo discusses his debut novel, The Standard Grand, how easy it is for civilians to forget about soldiers and veterans, and his longstanding love of animals.
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TORCH: Blood Trauma
But still: A pattern. The trauma had been diluted by time. But, it was still present, still discernible, in my blood.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
A bookstore on wheels is headed to Baghdad, Iraq, once the literary capital of the Middle East until it was invaded by American forces. Not content with celebrating Independent Bookstore Day along with the rest of the country, two stores plant to launch Texas Bookstore Day in August. San Francisco’s Mission Bookstore is planning to […]
...moreThis Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your community, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Loganberry Books in Cleveland, Ohio is drawing attention to female authors by turning books by men around on the shelves, leaving the books pages out to hide the spine. A Pittsburgh bookstore is providing a home to books by writers in exile, drawing attention to the authors’ works. The collapse of the coloring book market is hurting […]
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The Mirror’s Shards
In the face of colossal and destructive political lies, we need a more nuanced understanding of the world than simply truth versus lie.
...moreThis Week in Books: The Red Hijab
Welcome to This Week in Books, a new Rumpus column that will highlight books just released by small and independent presses. Books are more important than ever. As we head into a Trump presidency, we’re seeing attacks on basic constitutional rights, increased hate crimes, and denial of accepted science. Books have always been a symbol for and […]
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #60: Leah Kaminsky
Leah Kaminsky’s debut novel, The Waiting Room, depicts one fateful day in the life of an Australian doctor and mother, Dina, living in Haifa, Israel. Dina is trying to maintain normalcy as she goes about her work as a family doctor, cares for her son, and fights to preserve her faltering relationship with her husband, […]
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Fresh Comics #12: Rolling Blackouts
Some books take such a mammoth effort to produce that it’s hard to want to be critical of them. Rolling Blackouts is one of those books. The nearly 300 pages of delicately crafted, watercolored panels make evident that Sarah Glidden is a workhorse of a talent. The dialogue—which is mostly transcribed from conversations—is incredibly natural and nuanced; […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Saleem Haddad
Saleem Haddad discusses his debut novel Guapa, the Orlando shootings, the importance of queer spaces, and Arab literature.
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Cooked: The Story of Everything
Because Cooked samples from all of its predecessors in style and topic, it becomes a show that can’t be pigeonholed into the tired and dry mechanisms of foodie-media.
...moreDystopian Refuge
For the New York Times, Alexandra Alter writes about the Middle Eastern writers finding refuge from the post-Arab Spring disillusionment and chaos in dystopian fiction, speaking with writers like Basma Abdel Aziz, author of The Queue, and Saleem Haddad, author of Guapa.
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American Ambiguity
My racial awareness, perhaps even my awareness of myself as a person, self-consciousness, is a three-pronged paradox of shame, pride, and indifference.
...moreReshaping Humanities in the Middle East
Though every time I hear it, I can’t help but cringe a little. It reeks of insularity. Have you read what’s coming out of the Arab world right now? I thought when I heard that question again this year. That’s mostly what’s on my mind these days. Are you seeing what these writers are doing […]
...moreThe Middle East in Writing
Increasingly, a writer needs an access point, a micro-focus, a close-up lens—even a gimmick: one small story through which larger historical truths can be elucidated anew. For the Los Angeles Review of Books, N.S. Morris writes about how journalism inform stories being written about the Middle East, exploring the various shapes nonfiction takes in the process […]
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