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
How many of us, “congenial spirits” are left out there, as Woolf writes in The Voyage Out (1915), “feel[ing] intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.” Continue reading “Ravens, Cream, solitude, sublimity”: Virginia Woolf on Literature & Inner Peace
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
‘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
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
Together is, indeed, a crucial text that is brutally, lovingly, and magically real. It is the ultimate celebration of our kind and what we can achieve to not only survive but to survive beautifully. Continue reading Ece Temelkuran’s Together: Heart-Shaped Stones, Whitman & Us
This is Sophia Al-Maria’s gentle reminder that you’re part of something bigger than the constructs of nations, religions, and ethnicities–you’re part of something bigger than yourself. Continue reading From Puyallup to Mount Sinai: The Girl Who Fell to Earth by Sophia Al-Maria
Joanna’s insight into the dynamics of love and loss as one seeks a sense of belonging is moving and captivating and guided our conversation about her book. Continue reading In Conversation with Joanna Eleftheriou: This Way Back (2020)
meditations on home, belonging & all things literary 
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