Middle East
Breaking Frontiers
by Maliha Masood
I had trespassed in terrorist country. I had flirted with danger. I was lucky to make it back in one piece. So I gather…. Read more >>
Eid al-Adha: Sheeps!
by Shae Healey
It’s 5 a.m. and I’m wide awake studying the sharp slant of the ceiling and listening to the guttural purr of a stray cat in heat. The sharp moan of distress and yearning cuts through the winding alleyways of the medina and collides with the faint crackle of a nearby loudspeaker… Read more >>
Among the Believers
by Kit Habianic
In the heart of Damascus, encircled by drab government concrete and lanes of screaming traffic, lies an ancient city of a thousand wonders… Read more >>
Commiserating with Camels
by Alexis Wolff
I’m in the Negev Desert, approaching a tent that must sleep hundreds. It’s enclosed on all sides by what look like thick woven blankets, and I see through an opening that the ground is lined with dozens of colorful patterned runners… Read more >>
Not My Father’s Karachi
by Maliha Masood
“There are no crooners left in Karachi.” I’m not sure if he means it literally. But then my father goes on to talk about the Binaca Hit Parade. It was a popular radio program in Pakistan when he was growing up… Read more >>
Matters of the Flesh
by Maliha Masood
On my first visit to the Louvre, I was transfixed not so much by the Mona Lisa, but by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Turkish Bath, featuring a slew of nude damsels lounging in misty pools of steam and slippery marble floors. They were alluring, mysterious women, catering to the Orientalist inspired visions about the sensual East… Read more >>
Woman in the Dunes
by Maliha Masood
The jeep scaled up and down dunes, skidding in wide turns and crunching its tires on the squishy sand. I felt like a rubber ball bouncing inside a vacuum… Read more >>
Scent of a Secret Self
by Stephanie Dellosa
Within the Egyptian Bazaar of Istanbul was a perfume-maker by the name of Orhan. I do not ordinarily wear perfume, but I sought out the perfume-maker because I desired something very particular – my bespoke scent…. Read more >>
