Literature
Narratives of Caste
While caste has recently infiltrated American discourse and become more mainstream in Indian media, Dalit writers and activists have been flooding the Indian literary markets with memoirs, short fiction and poetry since the late 1960s.
Prison Song
In 2018, Kurdish musician Hozan Cane traveled from her home in Germany to northwestern Turkey to sing for a pro-Kurdish election campaign. The Turkish authorities swiftly arrested and imprisoned her on trumped-up charges. Her ordeal encapsulates a worrying trend in the country, where human rights abuses are on the rise.
One Hundred Years of Betrayal
The debate surrounding the Netflix adaptation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” provides an opportunity to appreciate the novel’s artistry, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s insights into the art of fiction, and the troubled path of his legacy over the decade since his death.
What the Stabbing of a Nobel Prize-Winning Novelist Tells Us About Power in Egypt
The attempted assassination of the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz is remembered as a story of Islamist extremism. Yet the original controversy sparked by his work, particularly “Children of the Alley,” was more to do with his powerful political vision than his views on religion.
The Lives of Gulf Migrants in Malayalam Literature
When the novel “Goat Days” was published in 2008, it set a new tone for writing in Malayalam on the Gulf, partly by casting an Arab as a villain. Since then, many stories have followed its template.
Gazan Poets Write To Survive
Writers in Gaza today, threatened by relentless bombardment and displacement and forced to focus their attention on the small details of survival, have been leaning on language to document, communicate and seek refuge from the brutal war that has now entered its second year.
The Novels That Charted Jewish Hardship, Survival and Assimilation in America
The story of Jews in America is one of exceptional upward mobility, and the community’s literature has evolved alongside it. Early fiction often focused on poverty and antisemitism, while later authors chronicled subtler forms of social discrimination and the pursuit of a less tangible sense of inclusion.