Photographs of war from the border of Turkey and Syria.
In a war that remains unfinished, two Syrian-British writers acknowledge and affirm those whose stories and lives may be lost in its course.
Farhad Mirza interviews Shahbaz Taseer about his experience as a captive between two battlefronts, and how his faith gave him the hope he needed to survive.
Sara Elkamel interviews Aya Aziz about Islam, sexuality, and the dimensions of the self.
For months, refugees caught in a "humanitarian logjam" near the Greek/Macedonian border lived in a makeshift tent city—until Greek officials cleared the area, replacing the fact of the camp with yet another layer of uncertainty.
An exhibition in Beirut challenges conventional perspectives to tell a political history of Palestinian embroidery
Erica Wright talks to translator André Naffis-Sahely about translating one of Morocco's greatest living poets and the 'commodity' of despair.
How Kurdish rights continue to flounder under an authoritarian Turkey and an imploding Syria.
While neighborhoods are being redeveloped, their histories are being used to advertise their future. History has become a marketing tool. Make use of the past and create the future with it: this is familiar for a country whose national ideology is built on an endless cycle of self-invention.
On the crowded bus there was an Iraqi woman who was utterly lost; she did not know where her hotel was. With their broken Arabic, the other riders managed to figure out where she was staying and told the driver. The driver, in turn, halted the bus right in front of the Iraqi woman’s hotel— the hotel of a woman from a country Iran had fought a bloody eight-year war with.
During the difficult times that the bleeding Middle East as a whole and Israel in particular are enduring, times of religious fundamentalism, violence, racism, and despair, Tel Aviv has indeed been a bubble—a bubble that continues to draw to it many who still believe we can build a better future through action and not just through prayer.
A journalist confronts her feeling of helplessness in watching a war from afar.
The journalist on reporting from a post-revolutionary Iran and tracing the rich ferment of its intellectual and social history.
At Tepe Naranj, archaeologist Zafar Paiman is working to preserve the remnants of an ancient monastery—and the memory of Afghanistan’s Buddhist past.
Filmmaker Kamal Aljafari talks to Nathalie Handal about the poetry of memory, and displacement in Palestine
Boundaries of Nations: The Nonviolent State of Iraq and Syria. The Republic-in-Motion of Lovers Not Fighters. The Government-in-Exile of People Who Just Want to Go to School.
Block by block she maneuvers through the teeming sidewalks of Kabul’s Shar-E-Naw shopping district until she enters Ice-Milk Restaurant, stops at tables.
The playwright and novelist on state censorship in Egypt, women in revolutions, and writing as an act of hope.
With a massive intelligence program, the US is still caught off guard
The filmmaker and journalist on the future of girls’ education in Afghanistan, “white savior narratives,” and documentary as an antidote to compassion fatigue.
Boundaries of Nature: What happens after we commodify the waves?
Reflections on the legacy of a relief initiative strengthened through its own tragedy.
The Israeli author on the dramatic family histories that fuel his work and the broken promises of his homeland.
Two acts of terrorism stir up memories of the West Bank and homophobia.
Our understanding of Israel’s occupation of Palestine must be reoriented to acknowledge the relation between oppressor and oppressed is not one of equal responsibility.
The Kurdish filmmaker on deploying a camera rather than a gun to fight for his community.
Vietnam and Iraq war veterans find closure only by returning to their war zones.
The scholar and peace activist on Palestinian centrism, living as an exile, and learning from both Fatah and Israeli soldiers on the road to radical compassion.
Boundaries of Gender: I stay because, as my mother never stopped repeating, I am my own woman, but also my own man.
Four years after its revolution, what has changed for Tunisia, and for the rest of the world?
The documentarian and journalist on the nation’s portrayal in the global media, the power of emergency cinema, and the role of the intellectual in revolution.
Chelsea Haines talks with artist Jon Rubin about the surprisingly controversial politics of serving Palestinian food in Pittsburgh.
Cartoonists across the Middle East denounced the Charlie Hebdo murders with work that reflects their own daily struggle against censorship and intimidation.
When we moved to the Ella Valley, my partner and I took great care not to build on land that might have belonged to Palestinians before the war of 1948.
When they arrived in Abbottabad, my mother thought it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. My father was glad for his homecoming.
Is the US attacking ISIS to avoid looking the fool?
I admit my decision to move my family to Gaza is kind of strange.
At times I wonder whether they considered me a human being or a lamb to sacrifice for their own good.
Identity and amour in an Israeli kibbutz following the Six-Day War.
Fifty years ago, Forugh Farrokhzad’s 'Another Birth' modernized and scandalized Iranian poetry with its radical feminine voice.
The filmmaker on finding inspiration in poetry and the meaning of “home” in Palestine.
Free Expression: The surprising weapon of the Taksim Gezi Park protests: a cheery disposition.
Asghar Farhadi’s The Past raises questions about what makes a film Iranian and how we should treat that category in the first place
When a natural resource becomes a weapon of war.
The controversial author unravels the complexity of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the “inevitable tragedy” at the heart of Zionism.
Part essay, part interview, part author, part reader, part 'she,' part The Man of Small Vital Facts.