Reclaiming the Narrative
Features Editor Sana Hussain’s essay explores sexual power plays in Pakistani Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai’s short stories.
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Cutting Through The Fat
“Perhaps the most annoying pro-choice synonym I have discovered for being fat is “bubblyâ€. As if the extra poundage somehow magically morphs into excess humor and verbosity,” writes Features Editor Maria Amir in the Winter 2014 issue.
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Fog
“How can one, under a splendid sun, and with intimate news / about the universe, be desperate?” writes Lebanese poet Etel Adnan in the exquisite ‘Fog’.
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Always Coca-Cola
‘Always Coca-Cola’, Alexandra Chreiteh’s debut novel, was described by Words Without Borders as “a razor-sharp commentary on how young women in Beirut today are buffeted by the alternately conflicting and conspiring forces of hegemony, capitalism, and patriarchy.†Abeer Ward, the novel’s narrator, belongs to overlapping and contradictory social circles: a mainstream conservative family, a circle of adventurous young friends, Beirut’s communalism, and global consumerism. In the excerpt that follows, Abeer is with her family.
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The Gaze of the Voyeur
“Women are denied agency, defined only in relation to the active gaze of the male viewer, or male characters with whom the viewer is encouraged to relate,” writes Senior Film Critic Tom Nixon in the Winter 2014 issue.
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The Smell of Soap
In this excerpt from Elias Khoury’s previously untranslated novella, ‘The Smell of Soap’, the narrator goes to the cinema with a girl he just met. As they watch a documentary on the musician Jamil Al Haddad, the narrator fantasizes about the hours that will follow the film and also remembers his years as a member of an armed militia in Beirut.
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Less than a Drop
Darkness damages desire / Living is less than a drop / Don’t waste your whole body / Now ~ By Bassam Hajjar
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180 Sunsets
The characters in ‘180 Sunsets’ don’t belong in any way to this place called Zahraniyya where they live. They came to this place, twenty or so miles from Lebanon’s capital city Beirut, fleeing their areas of origin, because of the war, or the wars, and here they are, in houses new to them, houses being built there. All the while, they are building resentment and hatred toward each other as if, in their turn, they are getting ready for their own coming war.
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The Bus
Najwa Barakat’s ‘The Bus’ is the story of a group of strangers who share a long bus ride, gradually revealing their stories and their secrets. During a police inspection, the grisly discovery of a severed head on the bus prompts mutual recriminations and soul-searching. The excerpt that follows is taken from Chapter 27.
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The Curse
Hyam Yared’s ‘The Curse’ (La Malédiction), is the story of Hala, a young Lebanese woman born in 1970s Beirut who is stifled by her Catholic-school upbringing, coming of age while the country is under threat of Syrian invasion. This excerpt comes from pages 121-124 of the novel.
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