Hepatitis: The Road Trip
“When I had the test yesterday I told the guy, ‘God forbid, if you find HIV in me, please, don’t give me the news, just give my parents the news…because if you tell me I might just go straight and commit suicide.’” Abraham,[i] a small time real-estate agent and sometimes used-car salesman, was recounting what
Arabs of the Future: Beirut in the Present Tense
13 January 2015 I had flown to Beirut for the first annual Symposium on Arabic Comics to deliver a paper about the Franco-Syrian comic artist Riad Sattouf’s incredibly popular graphic novel, The Arab of the Future. As part of the American University of Beirut’s symposium, and kicking off the events, a top Lebanese wedding planner
Every Day Is National Day in Oman
Oman commemorated its 45th National Day on November 18th, which was also His Majesty Sultan Qaboos’s 75th birthday. Festivities weren’t confined to just one day. Preparations were visible in early September, and some of the most anticipated celebrations occurred in December, long after his birthday. In fact, sometimes it feels like every day is National
Fool’s Gold: On Oil and its Discontents
Oil is at times called “black gold” because, like the metal, it is precious. Its discovery spurs avaricious rushes and crowns a nouveau-riche class in garish ostentation. Numerous books, films, and artworks have documented the familiar, shimmery promise of the commodity; and the predictable disappointment that follows. The peripatetic Polish foreign correspondent, Ryszard Kapuscinski, wrote
The Echoes of Hurricanes
Last week, 195 nations meet in Paris to decide the fate of the systems that support life on earth. Again. Since 1995, a majority of the world’s countries has met every year but failed to reach a lasting agreement to figure out what to do about the warming planet. This annual event, which weighs heavier
Impressions Aboard the Train from Abidjan to Ouagadougou
October 1, 2015 Three hours before the train to Ouagadougou was scheduled to leave, the station in Treichville, in southern Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire, hummed with more activity than it had seen in days. Across from the crowd control barriers, ticket-holders sipped Nescafé on a concrete ledge, shielding their faces from the
The Sinister Effects of Warmer Water
“At night, it looked like another city,” Isabel tells me as she gestures out her office window toward the sea. “There were hundreds of lights. But now, what do you see?” she asks me. “Nada,” I reply. Isabel Soto Gonzalez runs the daily operations at the marina in Santa Rosalía. She tells me that the
Speech Bubble: A Comic Festival in Algiers
12 Nov 2015 Le Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Alger is held on hallowed ground. Between the massive Martyrs Monument and the Army Museum, the white tent city of booksellers, exhibitions, plenaries and workshops sits above the hills, upon a multi-floor shopping center of the Esplanade de Riadh El Feth. The Martyrs Monument’s distinctive
Muscat to Mji Mkongwe
Unguja ni njema atakaye aje — Zanzibar is good to those who will come, Swahili proverb I approached the passenger side door with my bag slung over my shoulder, dripping with sweat as I waited for the taxi driver to unlock the car. As I stood there, wondering what might be taking so long, I
Arab Cartoonists Respond to the Tragedy in Paris
PRI – Jonathan Guyer spoke with Marco Werman of PRI’s The World about the response of Arab cartoonists and satirists in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris and Beirut. In the interview, Jonathan describes the unifying messages coming from Arabic cartoons in response to the tragedies. He also discusses the global impact of terror and the