Privileged Exile

You read the words of Mahmoud Darwish, his nostalgia, revolution and melancholia swirl the desert dust over times and places to reach your eye. Yes, I swear. This is how the tear settled on my dry cheek. And Nizar Qabbani whose eroticism, love and poetic (but also political) fight for social justice make you tingle

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Observations of a Woman in Cairo

Having been born and raised in Cairo by upper middle class Egyptian Muslim parents, gender issues and women’s rights weren’t topics typically dealt with in my family despite how “open-minded” my parents claim to be. A patriarchal culture filters through life’s many branches in Egypt, silencing the voices demanding the downfall of the patriarchy and

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