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📚 “The Nakba is not a memory. It is the present.”

In #FreedomToRead, Elias Khoury and Ilan Pappé explore the Nakba as lived reality and the power of literature as resistance. From "Palestine in a World on Fire" (@haymarketbooks.org, 2024).

🔗 bit.ly/palestine-is-...

#TMR52 #SummerFictionIssue
Palestine Is Literature: Elias Khoury & Ilan Pappé in Conversation
Elias Khoury and Ilan Pappe discuss a mutual line of racism and victimization that runs through the Nakba and the Holocaust.
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August 4, 2025 at 7:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
📝 “They want to erase every trace of that life. But still, I remember.”

Francesca Vawdrey on “Voices of Resistance: Diaries of a Genocide” by Batool Abu Akleen, Sondos Sabra, Nahil Mohana & Ala’a Obaid (@commapress.bsky.social, 2025): bit.ly/memoricide-vo...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead
Memoricide Voided by Four Palestinian Women Diarists
"Voices of Resistance" stands as a vital work of testimonial literature that refuses to be forgotten, writes Francesca Vawdrey.
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July 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
“They said, ‘Read!’ I said, ‘I won’t read!’ They punched me, and I fell off the chair.”

🚀 “Space Imam” by Hassan Blasim (trans. @abdulrazzak) is a surreal sci-fi tale of faith, methane & rebellion.

Read via in our latest issue: bit.ly/space-imam

#TMR52#FreedomToRead @wsoykirjat @commapress
"Space Imam"—a story by Hassan Blasim
A story excerpted from Hassan Blasim’s forthcoming collection entitled "The Buried," to be published at the end of the year.
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July 25, 2025 at 10:00 AM
markaz-review.bsky.social
🤖 In our summer issue, @fadizaghmout.bsky.social’s "My Choices Are My Downfall" (tr. @bookfabulous.bsky.social) follows a woman, her robot, and one very bad morning in future Dubai.

A fire breaks out—and it may not be the robot’s fault.

🔗Read: bit.ly/my-choices-ar...

#TMR52 #FreedomToRead
"My Choices Are My Downfall"—a short story by Fadi Zaghmout
What happens when a human-robot relationship forms? In near-future Dubai, an accident in a skyscraper holds the key to this question.
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August 10, 2025 at 8:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
Shrines, graves, martyrs’ walls — in Forgotten, Raja Shehadeh & Penny Johnson uncover Palestine’s hidden heritage. Gabriel Polley follows their elegiac journey through memory and erasure.

🔗 bit.ly/palestines-pl...

#TMR #TMR52 #FreedomToRead #Palestine #BookReview
Palestine's Places and Memorials Are Not Forgotten
A profound meditation on the Palestinian landscape, on loss, neglect and the ravages of time, by Raja Shehadeh and Peggy Johnson.
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July 19, 2025 at 8:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
🇵🇸 Taqi Spateen paints Aaron Bushnell at Palestine Museum US — a mural of fire turned into poppies. A stunning tribute to resistance & solidarity.

By Hadani Ditmars via The Markaz Review
🔗bit.ly/taqi-spateen-...

#AaronBushnell #FreePalestine #ArtAsResistance #TaqiSpateen #FreedomToRead #TMR52
Taqi Spateen Paints Palestine Museum Mural of Aaron Bushnell
Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. serviceman who self-immolated to protest the genocide in Gaza, has become a modern Palestinian martyr.
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July 31, 2025 at 8:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
“Here we live and die and live and die over and over again.”

Thoth’s urgent dispatch from Palestine, where a 90-min drive becomes a 2-day ordeal of checkpoints and airstrikes, revealing everyday courage and loss.

🔗Read: bit.ly/unwritten-sto...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead #Palestine
Unwritten Stories from Palestine
Thoth invites readers to witness the struggles of Palestinians and raise awareness of the ongoing catastrophe in the West Bank.
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July 11, 2025 at 3:00 PM
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“War stretches time. The things that had happened just two days ago felt like distant memories.”

In “The Bullet, the Missile and the Woman In-Between,” Alireza Iranmehr (tr. Salar Abdoh) captures the surreal rhythms of war and the quiet evolution of fear.

🔗 bit.ly/the-bullet-th...

#TMR52#Fiction
The Bullet, the Missile and the Woman In-Between
A meditation on how war distorts the perception of time, transforming events and grief into distant memories.
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July 22, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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“I am going back to my husband and children, even if it means seeing them with one eye.”

Nahla Karam’s piercing story (tr. Nada Faris) of two women sharing a hospital room in Cairo, where longing, betrayal, and survival coexist.

🔗 bit.ly/waving-at-the...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead
"Waving at the Sky"—a story by Nahla Karam
Two women on the mend in the hospital, one a wife and mother, the other pining for a lover, both dream of a better life.
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July 13, 2025 at 8:00 AM
markaz-review.bsky.social
📖 In our summer issue, Rana Alsoufi follows Sam, a Syrian asylee in the U.S., torn between home and safety.

“I want to be in Old Damascus for two, three days… just do it my own way.”
Can return ever be simple for the exiled?

🔗 bit.ly/syrian-asylee...

#TMR52 #FreedomToRead #Syria #Exile
Syrian Asylees in the US Risk Everything Going Home
U.S. asylees and refugees must consider the risks of visiting Syria against the lives they've established in the U.S.
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August 8, 2025 at 8:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
📚 In “In Reading, We Resist,” Afghan writer Marie Bamyani shares how women in Afghanistan & diaspora defy tyranny through books. Reading is their oxygen, a quiet act of survival.

“Reading…has become a form of resistance.”

🔗 bit.ly/in-reading-we...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead
In Reading, We Resist
In Paranda, everyday activities like reading symbolize protest and resistance in homes, alleyways, and gatherings.
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August 7, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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🕊️ “The poem said its piece, and moved on…”

#TMRWeekly reviews “Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece” (City Lights, 2025) by Gazan poet Nasser Rabah, translated by Ammiel Alcalay, Emna Zghal & Khaled Al-Hilli.

🔗 bit.ly/in-nasser-rab...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead #Poetry
In Nasser Rabah’s Poetry, تقول القصيدة كلمتها
Nasser Rabah and other poets of Gaza are still writing — still sending their poems to us, because Palestine is literature.
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August 4, 2025 at 4:01 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
👩‍⚕️ “Even the grand multiparas make me angry — all while dazzling the doctor in me.”

A brilliant essay by Sarah Shaheen, translated by Lina Mounzer, on childbirth, medicine, and resilience in rural Egypt.

📖 Read here: bit.ly/a-medical-gaz...

#Empathy #FreedomToRead #TMR52 #TheMarkazReview
A Medical Gaze at the Grand Multiparas
A doctor writes on the grand multipara, “the great giver of multiple births” — women who have given birth five or more times.
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July 30, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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“He was born in this very place, and it is where he spends each day, his emaciated foot resting against the swirls of dust…”

In “Bleating” by Eman Al Yousuf (tr. @bookfabulous), revenge simmers on a yellow street where nothing—and no one—ever really leaves.

🔗 bit.ly/bleating-a-sh...

#TMR52
"Bleating"—a short story by Eman Al Yousuf
After many years of being tormented, a man finally seeks revenge against past aggressors who have long since vanished. Or have they?
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July 20, 2025 at 6:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
“It holds form without function — presence without clarity.”

Meriam Othman on Baghdad’s Al-Rahman Mosque: a vast, unfinished structure that haunts Iraq’s skyline — and its political memory.

🔗 bit.ly/architecture-...

#TMR #TMR52 #FreedomToRead #Iraq #ArchitectureAndMemory
Architecture and Political Memory
In Iraq, buildings don’t simply reflect ideology — they absorb it, transmit it, and sometimes resist it. Especially when left unfinished.
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July 17, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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“I went with an open heart and open mind.”

Geologist Manar Alsaif hikes Britain, Norway, and Saudi Arabia, learning to read landscapes as stories—and finding her heritage written in stone and sand.

Read:
🔗 bit.ly/reading-betwe...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead #NatureWriting
Reading Between the Lines of Land
Trekking through the diverse terrains of Britain, Norway, and Saudi Arabia, a geologist embarks on a journey of self-discovery and reconnecting with her roots.
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July 12, 2025 at 10:00 AM
markaz-review.bsky.social
“It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.” —Victor Hugo

@YahiaLababidi on Hugo’s quiet turn toward Islam, seeking kinship beyond borders, faiths, and fear.

🔗Read in our FREEDOM TO READ issue: bit.ly/victor-hugo-a...

#TheMarkazReview #TMR52 #FreedomToRead #VictorHugo
Victor Hugo and Islam: A Literary Bridge Between East and West
Victor Hugo’s way still guides those building bridges across languages, faiths, and histories in a time of fear.
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July 10, 2025 at 4:00 PM
markaz-review.bsky.social
“Was this truly an end, or just the next turn in a cycle of hope and despair?”

Arie Amaya-Akkermans on Syria’s fragile artistic revival post-Assad, amid censorship, collapse, and cautious hope.

🔗 Read now: bit.ly/syria-and-the...

#TheMarkazReview #SyriaArt #TMR52 #FreedomToRead
Syria and the Future of Art: an Intimate Portrait
Following the banishment of Bashar Al-Assad, Syrian artists are starting to return and exhibit new work at home and internationally.
bit.ly
July 9, 2025 at 4:00 PM