New Short Fiction: ‘Denial Likes Small Activities’
Book Review: Ansam Abu Sitta’s ‘Bench of the Reserves’
Mahmoud Darwish: ‘The End of Things’
Fiction
New Short Fiction: ‘Denial Likes Small Activities’
This story comes from Hussein al-Abri’s latest collection, Time Slips Away in the Corner (2026).
Poetry
Mahmoud Darwish: ‘The End of Things’
There are events around the world this September 25-27 celebrating the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, after the Arab World Institute and Centre Pompidou declared September 25 to be “Mahmoud Darwish Poetry Day.”
Texts After the Screaming
Nour Balousha wrote these two poems “after I stopped screaming, not because it ended, but because I grew too exhausted to keep screaming.”
Interviews
On Music, Memory, and Damascus
“Music is one of the arts most connected to place, as it is a physical vibration in a space.”
On Shaping ‘The Book of Damascus’
The Book of Damascus, ed. Zaher Omareen, is a new anthology in their “Reading the City” series. Here, editor Zaher Omareen talks with Fifi Bat-hef about selecting ten stories to represent a city as complex and storied as Damascus.
Palestinian Sittis and the Inheritance of Memories
In this conversation, Hooda Shawa offers inspiring insight into her experience writing such a personal and powerful novel as well as herself as an author.
In Focus
From the archives
A Talk with Poet Golan Haji: ‘Languages Never Draw Geographical Boundaries’
” Jaziri wrote poetry with one set of alphabets which at that time were used in four languages: Kurdish, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Sometimes, he used the four languages in one couplet. His poems are still recited and sung by Kurds. That coexistence of languages was quite natural, the alluring music was convincing, although I sometimes understood almost nothing.”
‘Resistance and the Palestinian Folk Song’
‘Writing in Gaza’: by Yousef el-Qedra






