A short story by Aiysha Jahan.
Arts & Letters
Before I died – beaten black and blue by a lynch mob with a watchman’s stick, an iron rod, fists, kicks and head-butts – and before I committed blasphemy, I was a moderate believer. Now that I’m dead, I’m a nonbeliever. Not an atheist, but a nonbeliever.
Syrian-made films are not something new that has just arrived with the uprising. Documentary filmmaking, with its focus on giving an honest portrayal of a situation, has played an important and hotly contested role in Syria for many years.
Three poems by Moniza Alvi.
A poem from Ruth Padel.
Two Ghazals from American poet and critic, Marilyn Hacker.
It is October 2013. I am in the back of a Jordanian taxi, national radio pumping out all our adoration of the Hashemite dynasty, searching for the tower blocks and alleyways where the Syrian refugees live. I am going to convince them to be part of a theatre workshop. I know it’s not going to be an easy job.
Seven poems by Jake Murray.
He makes the yummiest of croissants. They are flaky and marginally sweet, with golden layers on top that come off at the softest of touches. The smell of pure butter wafts along as the croissants slide out of the oven on a piping hot tray. Delicious doesn’t even begin to describe the crescent-shaped pastries.
We’d been in the bleak bungalow a fortnight when Alastair went off on exercise with his signal troop to Mersing on the east coast of Malaysia. Ah Mai, my amah, had been with us since we moved in, and as it was Saturday she was about to go home to her family for the weekend.