Harry Potter and the Rim of Fire

Ron knelt back, positioning himself between Harry’s legs.

Tom Morton

Solid Gold: On Freej

Since its debut in the coveted iftar primetime slot in 2006, Freej has emblazoned the diva-like Um Khammas, sporty Um Saeed, tech-savvy Um Allawi, and ditzy Um Saloom onto the hearts and minds of people across the region.

Sophia Al-Maria

Oshin’s Forelock

But there were not so many heroines for girls in the early years of the Islamic Republic.

Pamela Karimi

Bouboul

In 1988, at a painful moment of the armed conflict in Lebanon, Milia received her first letter.

Sahar Mandour

Razing Dubai

Herein lies the future of architecture, the future of urbanism, the future of the future.

Bidoun

Islam and the West

In the spring of 2003, Mustapha Chérif and Jacques Derrida sat down in Paris’s Institut du Monde Arabe and disagreed.

Leland de la Durantaye

Rice Pudding For Two

Rehab Bassam’s new short story collection, Rice Pudding for Two, appears as part of Dar El Shorouk’s Shorouk Blogs (Mudawwanat Shuruq) series, which explores the worlds of bloggers and makes them accessible to general readers as print books.

Sahar Mandour

The Turban & the Hat

Throughout his career, Sonallah Ibrahim, one of contemporary Arabic literature’s most respected figures, has balanced a sense of outrage at the political and moral corruption permeating the neocolonial situation, against the subtler devices of literary writing.

Hassan Khan

Stay Out of My Room

Annabel Mehran

Samandal: Super friends

“Besides your dentist, who reads it?”

Negar Azimi

M.I.A.: Brown Girl In the Ring

The musician Maya Arulpragasam calls Muammar Qaddafi her style icon.

Negar Azimi

Banu Cennetoğlu: Legacy of fragility

Travels in the private archive.

Michael C. Vazquez

Johan Grimonprez & Tom McCarthy: If you see yourself, kill him

“What terrorists gain, novelists lose.” Or: the media hijacks the hijacker.

Alexander Provan

CAMP: Privilege escalation

On the boundaries of collectives and the litany of one hundred thousand possible “backronyms.“

Murtaza Vali

Mohamed Moussalli: The King of Portraits

From the late 1960s to the 90s, Mohamed Moussalli’s signature graced portraits of nearly every Lebanese political figure.

Zeina Maasri

Mohamed Makiya: Deeply Baghdadi

Mohamed Makiya’s mother used to say that her son was born the year the British entered Baghdad, which puts his birthday sometime around 1916.

Guy Mannes-Abbott

Etel Adnan: Children of the sun

“I accept contradiction when it happens.”

Lynne Tillman

Sonallah Ibrahim: Odd man out

“Good writers still exist, but their political stands are vague.”

Ahmed El Attar

Golden Microphone

In 1965 Hürriyet, an influential Turkish newspaper, announced the Altin Mikrofon.

Michael C. Vazquez

The Town Tavern

At Naya’s pub — known by regulars as Abu Elie’s — pictures of communists line the walls.

Sahar Mandour