Recent Stories

Layla Baalbaki: The Last Existential Feminist

Upon her passing, critics must reintroduce the late author, whose literary legacy was lost in the haze of time
 
Despite her reputation as one of the boldest Lebanese women writers at the peak of her career, Layla Baalbaki’s passing without much coverage on October 21, 2023, though delivering a shock throughout the Arab literary world, did not come as a surprise given the journalist and writer’s retreat from the spotlight since the 60s. Baalbaki was the first Lebanese woman tried in court for “outraging public decency” with her short story collection, “Spaceship of Tenderness to the Moon” (1963). The late writer’s life has been shrouded in mystery since she departed from literary fiction, even more so after her death. As many recall the impact of her works, others speculate on her short-lived literary career in equal fervor: why did Layla Baalbaki stop writing? Did she leave behind any notes or a memoir about her life before her passing? Without the woman herself to confirm or deny, any answers remain mere speculation.

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Our Current Issue

The Door That Arrived Before the Truth:

When Evidence Becomes an Exhibit
By Naomi Pham
 
“Everything became visible. The prisons were opened. People entered them. Cells were photographed. Papers, clothes, remnants of beds, doors, and instruments of torture were collected. What had once been hidden was now placed before everyone’s eyes,” writes Sally Ali in her essay, “Should We ‘Eat Each Other’s Worries’?”, published in Al Modon.* Yet visibility does not necessarily constitute remembrance, nor does displaying the material remains of suffering mean that those who suffered have been cared for in the aftermath. The 63rd Damascus International Fair held in late August brought the horrors of Assad’s prisons out under open air for all to see. The exhibition “When the Walls Speak” was presented in the Interior Ministry’s pavilion. The exhibit included a reconstruction of a cell using real cell doors, detainees’ clothing, handcuffs and other restraints, and a chair used for torture — all items collected from the various prisons and security branches, including Military Security Branch 248, which operated under the Assad regime.
Essays and Features

What Lies Beyond the Safe Story:

Algeria and the Courage to Look
By Elie Chalala
 
A healthy literature cannot be entirely free of crime fiction, or, more broadly, of literature that confronts crime, violence, and human conflict. No society is free of conflicts, whether visible or hidden. A brief look at Algeria’s history before and after independence reveals a long record of political upheaval, repression, and violence. The question, then, is not whether such realities exist, but whether literature is willing to confront them.
Essays and Features

Two Approaches to Death, One Crisis of Governance:

Rethinking the Death Penalty in Syria and Lebanon
By Naomi Pham
 
“A state is not tested when it tries someone who is widely loved. It is tested when it tries someone whom most of the country despises,” writes Sally Ali in her essay, “On One Day, Beirut Abolishes and Damascus Executes.” This observation is particularly relevant to the recent death penalty decisions in Syria and Lebanon, where the question of punishment has become inseparable from the question of state governance. On August 11, the Damascus Criminal Court sentenced former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, cousin Atef Najib, former Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij, and five other former regime officials to death, a ruling that raises broader questions about what kind of government Syria will establish in the aftermath of the Assad regime. On the same day, Lebanon’s parliament approved the abolition of the death penalty, a decision that Marwan Harb argues may carry little meaning for Lebanese citizens unless the state can also address its political and social failures. Together, the contrasting decisions in Syria and Lebanon demonstrate how the death penalty can serve not merely as a form of punishment, but as a measure of a state’s commitment to justice, accountability, and legitimate governance.
Essays and Features

When Delay Becomes Part of the Crime:

August 4 and the Collapse of Lebanon's Last Illusion
By Elie Chalala
 
The Beirut Port explosion was not simply a tragic accident, but a catastrophe enabled by years of political negligence and institutional complacency. On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Hangar 12 alongside fireworks exploded, killing at least 218 people, injuring roughly 7,000, and displacing approximately 300,000 more. Yet in the six years since the blast, efforts to hold those responsible accountable have been repeatedly obstructed, leaving justice suspended and the victims without closure. Rather than focusing solely on the explosion itself, Sally Ali in her essay, “August 4 and the Insolence of Crime,” examines the political structure that allowed such dangerous conditions to persist and, more importantly, the system that has survived largely unchanged in its aftermath. The question is not simply whether justice has yet to arrive, but whether the greater danger lies in the state’s ability to endure six entire years after a crime that should have fundamentally transformed it.
Essays and Features

Between Languages and Legacies:

French, Historical Memory, and Algeria's Linguistic Future
By Naomi Pham
 
In Algeria, the debate over whether French should be replaced by English has become increasingly entangled with broader geopolitical and ideological tensions, often overshadowing the country’s actual linguistic and educational needs. In his discussion of Algeria’s “language question,” Algerian novelist and author Waciny Laredj rejects both the demonization of French and the uncritical glorification of English, arguing instead for a pragmatic, historically informed, and educationally sound approach to multilingualism.* French remains deeply embedded in Algerian society, from everyday communication to education and professional life, making its complete removal an enormous and potentially disruptive undertaking. At the same time, Laredj challenges narratives that portray French solely as a colonial legacy, pointing to moments in which the language played an important role in intellectual, political, and liberation movements. The question facing Algeria is not simply whether French should be replaced by English, but whether such a transition is practical, historically conscious, and genuinely beneficial to the country and future generations.
Essays and Features

A Procession Through Time:

‘Ziyyah’ Transforms Village Ritual Into a Meditation on Memory, Coexistence, and the Recurring Wounds of Lebanon
By 
Naomi Pham
 
Lebanese novelist and critic Mounir El Hayek’s novel “Ziyyah” (Al-Rafidain Publishing House, 2025) tells a story that transcends time — two time periods, separated by a century, yet facing similar tribulations. Set in a fictionalized version of the town of Qabb Elias, the author’s very own hometown, the characters’ lives unfold in a story that intertwines history with a twist of magical realism.

The Marketplace of Nostalgia:

The ‘Beautiful Past’ of Algeria and Lebanon
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Trauma reshapes historical memory. People do not necessarily long for the past because it was ideal, but because the present became unbearable. Writers associated with Romanticism often imagined the past as spiritually richer or more authentic than industrial modernity. Postcolonial criticism often interrogates nostalgia, whether for empire, lost cosmopolitanism, or precolonial identities. Such topics are especially relevant to Algeria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria.

When Germans Dreamed of Algeria:

Citizenship, Language, and the Crisis of Identity
By 
Naomi Pham
 
News surrounding the arrest of Algerian-French author Boualem Sansal in Algeria on November 16, 2024, was met with an outcry internationally as many protested against the detainment of the then-75-year-old writer, who was undergoing treatment for cancer.

City of the Displaced:

Karantina and the Cycles of Exile in Beirut
By 
Elie Chalala
 
The current debate in Lebanon — following successive rounds of war between Hezbollah and Israel — centers on one of its most profound human costs: mass displacement. More than one million Lebanese have been internally displaced in a country already hosting approximately 1.5 million Syrians displaced by the protracted Syrian civil war.

From Bsharri to Boston:

Migration, Modernity, and Mentorship Forged the Transnational Legacy of Khalil Gibran
By 
Naomi Pham
 
The 95th anniversary of the passing of Gibran Khalil Gibran has prompted appreciation and remembrance of the late poet and artist, whose renown transcended borders and crossed seas. Many remember the writer for his most famous work, “The Prophet,” published in 1923, and continue to remember his legacy as a member of the Pen League nearly a century after his passing.

Life’s Two Moments

By 
Hanna Saadah
 
Life thrives between two seminal moments
Between the two moments of birth and death
These two moments encompass all of life
Because without birth there can be no life
Life can only thrive between these two moments.
 
But death is relative, not absolute
For life asserts itself wi

From Palestine to Lebanon:

The Persistence of a Human Moment
By 
Elie Chalala
 
For generations, in Lebanon and across the Arab world — and even in the diaspora — the term Nakba has carried a weight that exceeds its literal meaning of “catastrophe.” It is not merely a historical reference but a formative concept, one through which collective memory, political consciousness, and emotional identification have been shaped.

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