middle east
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Dystopian 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…
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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.
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Reshaping 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…
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The 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…
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Poetry As Propaganda
Oxford academic Elisabeth Kendall has found that poetry may be a major recruitment tool for militant jihadis in the Middle East. Although poetry is often sidelined in Western cultures, it is still important in Arab-speaking nations, where a reality TV show…
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Saudi Arabia to Execute Poet
Saudi Arabia, an American ally, sentenced a poet to death for renouncing Islam, although it may have been retribution for posting online a video of police lashing a man in the street. Poets around the world criticized the execution. One…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: A Coney Island of the Mind
My money is no good here. I may wear the clothes or speak the language, but something in my manner always betrays me as foreign. Despite my chosen title, I do not belong in Brooklynstan.
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Fresh Comics #1: An Iranian Metamorphosis
The question that lingers even after reading the book is about the use of symbolism in the cartoon and who has the final say—the creator or the readers?
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Another Story to Guide You
Over at the New Yorker, Etgar Keret and Sayed Kashua continue their conversation: I believe that this despair is temporary, and that even though there are quite a few political elements that would rather see us despairing, and even though it…
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A Story to See You Through
Etgar Keret and Sasha Kayua have had a pretty busy year: after speaking out against Israeli intolerance, and getting snubbed on every front, the pair turned to penning their viewpoints to each other. The New Yorker‘s published a few of…
