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Literature, Poetry

Borders

By Nathalie Handal

“This is not a suitcase or a fleeing day. This is not Arabic jazz or a city of lights.”
A poem against borders, by Nathalie Handal.

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Literature, Poetry

Your Mystery is the Milky Way

By Nathalie Handal

“: Who wants most when the wave is weary?/ : Who’s marred most when the map is missing?”
A poem against borders, by Nathalie Handal.

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Literature, Poetry

Midnight Train to Georgia

By Nathalie Handal

“Didn’t you know/ I was afraid to count the music/ on your side of midnight…”
A poem against borders, by Nathalie Handal.

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Roving Eye, Spotlight

Poet of the Month: Nathalie Handal

By Nathalie Handal, Pratyusha Prakash

“It’s important our works are read beyond the wreckages of where we come from…”
Nathalie Handal, The Missing Slate’s Poet of the Month, talks to Pratyusha Prakash.

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Literature, Poetry

Opera Kabul

By Nathalie Handal

“there are ten moons in this room,/ a thousand miles in this corridor/ but not a single whisper inside us…”
Poem of the Week (October 26), by Nathalie Handal.

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Essays, Globetrotter

“Kabul stops time. Its mountains are songs…”

By Nathalie Handal

A photo essay by Nathalie Handal, exploring the beauty of Kabul.

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Literature, Poetry

The Record Keeper

By Nathalie Handal

“there is only absence falling into absence/ and there’s also a high window/ and there is always evening prayer…” Weekend poem, by Nathalie Handal.

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Literature, Poetry

Echoes: A Historical Afterward

By Nathalie Handal

“The truth is you are part of the same tribe/But no one speaks about that//The reason is it’s easier to be a threat/How else can they justify the killing.” Poem of the Week (July 20), by Nathalie Handal.

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In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.