First Person
Stirring Memories
Mlaheeyeh, a dish from a southern Lebanese town, disappeared where it was born, but survived for a century in the kitchens of families who emigrated to Oklahoma. Its story reveals what war truly destroys when it displaces a people.
A Stranger to the Streets I Knew
When a Palestinian journalist returned to Gaza after nearly three years in Cairo, arriving just before Eid, she expected destruction and grief. But she was struck instead by how thoroughly loss has been absorbed into ordinary life.
The Afterlife of War’s Images
A veteran war correspondent reflects on the afterlife of photographs — and how they become fodder for conferences and fellowships while their subjects recede into oblivion.
I Grew Up in Iran and the Gulf. This War Risks Breaking the Bonds Between the Two
An Iranian academic who has spent years studying and living across the region reflects on what the recent war risks destroying — not just infrastructure, but the centuries-old transnational ties that have held its people together through every previous rupture.
Far From the Land of Good News
Nada Bakri, whose late husband restored a family home in Marjayoun, reflects on southern Lebanon from afar, tracing the political logic that delivered the region into its current devastation while mapping what it means to love a place you can no longer visit.
An Iranian’s Dispatch From the Digital Darkness
Journalist Nilo Tabrizy shares an essay by “Bijan,” an Iranian labor activist and former political prisoner who, during a 20-day communications blackout in January 2025, wrote about his experience in solitary confinement and being severed from the world. He has been unreachable since U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began.
Iran’s Attacks on the Gulf Are Leaving Scars That Won’t Fade
A writer based in Doha reflects on living through Iran's strikes on the Gulf states during Ramadan, drawing on memories of Kuwait during the 2003 Iraq War to explore the lasting psychological and social toll the conflict is leaving on Gulf societies.