Tag: Literature
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Alexandria, The End of The Affair
It’s an optimistic morning as I stroll along Rue Nebi Daniel, heading Downtown from the station just as the city is waking. Egyptian cities tend to emerge slowly from slumber; nights are often long, and mornings are reluctant. I think of Mahfouz as I walk; he would have taken a taxi or carriage. He wouldn’t…
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Syrian Literary List
14 Books to help understand more about Syria, its war and much more.
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Tarlabaşı; An Ode.
Saying goodbye to Tarlabasi Tarlabasi is a hive of informal commerce, the streets alive, trade and toil and the struggle to survive in a city overwhelmed, carts with squeaky wheels pushed up and down the hills, hawkers crying and calling, the rag and bone man and the Sahlep seller, in the afternoons the itinerant musicians…
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That Time in Cairo When I Met Mahfouz
Cairo, a steaming mess of a city that has the capacity to at first seduce and serenade you then almost immediately slap and violate you, and yet, despite it all you keep coming back for more. And here I was, back again. On the balcony of my scruffy room in the Hotel Hussein, the hotel…
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Day Trip to Basra
We had visas and letters of introduction and were quickly ushered towards the diplomatic booth, the guard look at the ink smudged pages of my passport with a bemused smirk and called to his colleague for guidance, the advice was simple, just stamp them in. He did and we were. As frontiers go Basra international…
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Istanbul Street Photography
“Sometimes I felt that my happiness issued not from the possibility that Füsun was near, but from something less tangible. I felt as if I could see the very essence of life in these poor neighborhoods, with their empty lots, their muddy cobblestone streets, their cars, rubbish bin, and sidewalks, and the children playing with…
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The Pigeon Men Of Damascus
One of my enduring memories of living in Damascus will always be the early morning ritual of my neighbor’s pigeon’s swoop and circle above my house. While I sip coffee on my rooftop he would wave and whistle at his birds, even when the war started they continued to fly, they still do. The formation…
John Wreford Photographer 