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Home2022 (Page 9)

March 2022

"Beirut Again" by Nour Annan Dearest friend, Amanda Lee Koe asks, is this how a spirit is worn down, sliver by sliver? The illusion of conspiracy was almost comforting, a better bet than coherence. I hadn't yet realised my spirit was being squeezed out from me from the moment I could hold a pen; by the time I released these words into the air, it was too late for me to do any more than offer resentment. For so long I have been trying to carve out my own way of living, find some break in the series of obligations constituting

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Letters, prose
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"Remember Me Forever" by Nour Annan Subject: "It is finding that is astonishing" From: Nur To: Sima, Nawal Thu, May 30, 2019, 5:15 PM Dear Nawal and Sima, A friend, Sarah D., shared with me a New Yorker article by Kathryn Schultz called "When Things Go Missing." She gave me a heads up before. The piece had devastated her. I can confirm after reading it that the piece is indeed devastating. It masterfully hits what we all fear: loss. In it, Schultz intertwines two types she's experienced-the deep, debilitating grief of losing her father and the everyday, more trivial, misplacement of things like her wallet, bike,

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Emails, Letters, prose
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"Variations on Sleep" by Nour Annan It is 4 p.m. in Tunis and all you want is sleep. The hotel is called Africa. The nondescript room, the unexplored city outside. Never mind. Sleep. You have come so far, for so long. Never mind the beckoning. Sleep. Earlier, you had photographed the first glimpse of sky over a new continent - a shade of Mediterranean that startles. Your youth had falsely taught you of the possible blues. You praise the airplane for landing over seas that don't honor the sinking of bodies, orange pockets full of lead, as light as hope.  Earlier, you had embraced the languid poses of spirits there to greet you,

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Poetry
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"Within/Without" by Nour Annan Dear Most Beautiful Berliner of All, You were one of my first encounters in Berlin.  I departed Beirut in late summer of 2020 in the midst of utter destruction and loss, and arrived in this haunted city.  I bought a yearly pass to the national museums as soon as I arrived. Maybe, without even realizing it, I was searching for you. With the museum pass, I received a catalogue enumerating the sights included in my subscription with descriptions of the most significant object in each museum. You were displayed in the main fold of the catalogue as the anointed "face" of

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Letters, prose
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Dear Readers,  The S.W.A.N.A. region has been through seismic shifts in the last ten years: infectious uprisings, dictators toppling in domino effect, borders fading in and out, countries turning to rubble and others burning, chaos and militarism, mass persecutions, massive refugee crises, forced evictions, forced migrations, and finally, finally, bats and corona. These are the headlines. The rest of it is experiential, personal, and plays out in private. In other words, it's the fine print. It is all the other internal forms of exile, belonging and disorientation, those tucked away in the in-between spaces, in memories that haunt us, in lonely

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Letters, prose
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زينة الحلبي | كلمة المحرّرة في شباط/ فبراير ٢٠٢٠، أي بعد أربعة أشهر على ١٧ تشرين، لم نكن في فريق تحرير مجلة فَمْ قادرين على استيعاب الأمل الذي كنّا قد اختبرناه في بدايات الثورة، والقلق الذي رافقنا لاحقاً. كنّا، أسوة بالجميع حولنا، نتأمّل انهيار الليرة فيما البلد ينكمش تدريجياً ويتلاشى. تجاه هذا المشهد، فضّلنا أخذ مسافة من القلق والخيبة والعمل على موضوع ظننّا آنذاك أنه سيكون هادئاً واعتيادياً، يدفعنا إلى القراءة والتفكير برويّة، فيما نحاول الحفاظ على ما تبقّى من حياتنا السابقة. وضعنا "الداء والدواء" عنواناً للعدد التاسع من المجلة، في حركة بريئة ستأخذ أبعاداً أخرى لاحقاً.  بعد أسابيع على إطلاق موضوع

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المحرّرة
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About Us
Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal was founded in the English Department of the American University of Beirut in 2012 with the intention of creating a space for both emerging and established writers who have a connection to Lebanon.
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