The Latest

This story comes from Hussein al-Abri’s latest collection, Time Slips Away in the Corner (2026).

Mostafa Khraïef (1910-1967) was a prominent Tunisian poet, writer, and journalist.

A story from the fall of 1983 by the scribe of Basra, Muhammad Khudayyir.

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.”

“I’m sitting alone in my room / my clothes scattered around me”

Nour Balousha wrote these two poems “after I stopped screaming, not because it ended, but because I grew too exhausted to keep screaming.”

“Music is one of the arts most connected to place, as it is a physical vibration in a space.”

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.

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.

Your love has taught me… how to be sad.
And I have needed, for ages
A woman to make me sad
A woman in whose arms I could weep
Like a sparrow,