RR
Home2020 (Page 6)

July 2020

"Wonderland II" by Beatriz Morales by Duygu Kankaytsın, translated from Turkish by Buğra Giritlioğlu (with the help of Daniel Scher) a daisy morningas your skin swelled against mineit was the face of soilthe eventual fracture of a mountain feelings are defeated, the lancet rustyentering the river, a fugitivesharpening human scent, rinsed uterusthe pain of words in her mouth love creates but a water sacthe sound of our ever-swirling rivera woman on her own shore, aloneas you step into the sea

Read More

A long fever, this afternoon. Sheet sun, eyelid tremor, far roofs rippled as dunes,  pools hung amid rock and its likenesses, horizons in your mind not fully closed. Hours turn you over in shallows – the glass rim between kelp scrapyards and capes, mountainous rungs down a fraying ladder – and the heat presses on, pushes time aside. You are somewhere past the awning in the sky, witnessing where everything is heading – formations slide apart into the surf, clouds roaring headway far inland – seeing memories come undone, fish veins at gutting.  

Read More

"Tabriz Cemetery" by Sajed Haqshenas *١- شيء جنينيّ جدًّا*   وصف: راشي ٩، الطّابق الرّابع باب الزّهور تل أبيب في المرّة الأولى الّتي زرتُ فيها س.ش. في مسكنه جائتني بحّة فريد الأطرش قادمة من العتمة من إحدى الشّقق بعد خروجي من المصعد الّذي هبط للتوّ في الطّابق الرّابع. قبل الدّخول، لم أجد مرآةً لتوظيب أطراف القميص داخل جينز الماما (mommy jeans) المنتفخ عند كرشتي. وقد استغربتُ ذلك لأنّ من عادة المباني التّل أبيبيّة الكلاسيكيّة أن تستقبل زوّارها بدعوة للالتفات إلى هيئاتهم، والمرآة في المدخل كانت مستطيلة تطوّق ما أتيح من جدران، باستثناء الباب، فلم أتمكّن سوى من معاينة وجنتيّ وأطراف عيوني وسيلان الكحل. أخمّن الشّقّة ذات الباب المزيّن بالزّهور

Read More

Part I: War Without Images The title of Mohammed Soudani’s film War Without Images- Algeria, I Know That You Know carries the unintended irony of being as forgotten and inaccessible as its subject matter is supposedly non-existent, given that the existence of the photographs that the film is about are negated by its title. Listed on none of the major film databases, I was very lucky to stumble upon this film while searching YouTube for documentaries about Algerian history. Given the film’s title, it is also hardly surprising that it was one of the first and only relevant results for my

Read More

"Untitled" by Maryam Riazi “I just don’t go. It’s not a thing here in India.”    This was the first thing Hostel Boy said when I asked about places to go at night in Jaipur.  I knew I was at the hippest place in all of Rajasthan when the receptionist told me about the Netflix and Chill room downstairs before telling me where my bed was.    On the second day, I woke up sick as a dog. Hostel Boy was lying on the human-swallowing hot pink fluffs of pillow, blanketing the parquet floor of the hostel basement. He saw me sneezing endlessly

Read More

"Kamakura 1 & 2" by Azza Hussein Note by the Author: In the mid 1800’s, a colony of outcasts was created, destination for those diagnosed with the Hansen’s disease known as leprosy, those sent to a desolate peninsula called Kalaupapa on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. The place has a dark and tragic history. Many died there. Some were tossed overboard to swim to shore or die Many were abandoned. Those sent there, their own homelands stolen so that the wealthy islanders could claim them, were quarantined, castigated, and suffered in often inhuman ways. The

Read More

في حين غادر إيران زملاء له، رفض هو مغادرتها بعد الثورة الإيرانية مفضّلًا البقاء في وطنه، حيث بيته وحارته وذكرياته. ظلّ في داره القديمة شمال طهران، داره المنزوية في ظل مبانٍ عالية وباردة، صامدة كصاحبها في وجه الهدم. ومن هناك، أنجز عباس كيارستمي، شاعر السينما وفيلسوفها، أجمل أفلامه.  في الرابع من شهر تمّوز، ستمرّ سنواتٌ أربع  على غياب هذا الفنان المعلّم (1940-2016) الذي قدّم تعريفًا جديدًا للسينما، وتلمّس، بلغةٍ بصريةٍ متأملةٍ وحساسة، مستوياتٍ عاليةً من المشاعر الإنسانية، لغة سينمائية تقترب من الواقعية الإيطالية الجديدة وسينما المؤلف الفرنسية، وتجد مصادرها في قلب الواقع اليومي والشعر الفارسي، وفي علاقة الإنسان مع

Read More

by Fouad M. Fouad, translated from the Arabic by Ola Abdulla 3 Our nightmares do not fit all this hell 4000 dead  Their terrified eyes leering at the emptiness of our souls Their stares clotting out of fear on the sidewalk   4000 dead How can the world fit all this wailing?    4000 dead in one month  20 thousand liters of tenebrous blood    “blood rivers” No longer a metaphor   6 We prepare for the worst, upcoming  Then the worst happens We’re perplexed  We’re shocked And we wallow  Then we begin again, Preparing for the worst, upcoming   12 The books are also refugees    Thousands of books arrived today from my library in Aleppo to Beirut.  The books that I gathered in the span of 40

Read More