Dear Europe: I Promise I’m Not Staying
Sure, I had the privilege of choosing to leave my homeland, but how much of that choice was really mine to begin with? Continue reading Dear Europe: I Promise I’m Not Staying
Category: book reviews + recommendations
Decolonizing History & Reclaiming the Narrative: Leila Aboulela’s Latest Novel River Spirit
What is not to love about a postcolonial novel that complicates the concepts of “victory” and “heroism,” inviting questions about whose victory, whose hero, and whose version of events–whose (hi)story is being told? Continue reading Decolonizing History & Reclaiming the Narrative: Leila Aboulela’s Latest Novel River Spirit
Existential Threats & Good Books | 2022 in Review
The opposite of death is not life, I don’t think–it is wonder. My grandpa’s words “I don’t want to die” reverberated until they did not. Continue reading Existential Threats & Good Books | 2022 in Review
Plums & Society & Fall Reads | November 2022
I owe it to myself to write, I often think to myself. Irrespective of what it is that I’m writing, writing seems to be the tool that enables me to be in touch with the best version of myself. Continue reading Plums & Society & Fall Reads | November 2022
In Search of Silence & a Life Worth Living: Etel Adnan’s Shifting the Silence
‘Shifting the Silence’ is raw and elusive, like the very reflection you’re reading here, but it will urge you to confront the incomprehensible. Continue reading In Search of Silence & a Life Worth Living: Etel Adnan’s Shifting the Silence
Finding Beauty ‘In Our Times of Greatest Love and Greatest Fear’: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
Lefteri approaches her characters’ vulnerability in such a gentle, graceful way that the novel feels heart-warming and hopeful despite the horrifying reality millions of people worldwide face today. Continue reading Finding Beauty ‘In Our Times of Greatest Love and Greatest Fear’: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
A Man without a Country: In Quest of a Homeland by Yousof Mamoor
The value of In Quest of a Homeland for me lies in its honesty and contribution to, in historian Juliet Gardiner’s terms (1988), history as an ongoing dialogue between the present and the past. Continue reading A Man without a Country: In Quest of a Homeland by Yousof Mamoor
Back at My Writing Desk & A Year of Soulful Books | 2021 in Review
It is March, I know, but it’s never too late to do anything, right? And this should include writing and posting late review posts. Continue reading Back at My Writing Desk & A Year of Soulful Books | 2021 in Review
meditations on home, belonging & all things literary 
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