The Mosul University Library, once home to centuries-old books and documents, is rebuilding after ISIS destroyed it.
war
Posted inEditor's Pick
Mosul’s Library Without Books
How the Mosul University Library — once home to books and documents dating to antiquity and destroyed by ISIS militants — is becoming the epicenter of Iraq’s cultural rebirth as the homemade mines are removed, Mosul University is rebuilt, and the book drives begin.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Aleppo After the Fall
“I wanted to wind back the clock and make sense of how a city that seemed so averse to politics — of any kind — had been torn apart.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction
From a Hawk to a Dove
Vietnam Veteran Ray Cocks, who’d eagerly enlisted in 1967, was forever changed by the realities of war.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
From a Hawk to a Dove
Vietnam Veteran Ray Cocks, who’d eagerly enlisted in 1967, was forever changed by the realities of war.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Month 13: What Happens After the Year-Long Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Ends?
When Canadians privately sponsor a Syrian refugee family, the agreement lasts one year. What happens at month 13?
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
An Emotional Tour of History: Naming Lakes After the Fallen
Des Kappel is the toponymist in charge of naming the 90,000 remaining land features and lakes in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Kappel’s work is often an emotional tour through history as he collects letters and photos of war casualties for his database.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Graffiti Kids Who Sparked the Syrian War
Mark MacKinnon tells the story of Naief Abazid — who, at the urging of some older boys, graffitied a school wall on a lark in Daraa, Syria, at age 14. The “writing on the wall” enraged Syria’s Baathist dictatorship, and became the source of ignition in the Syrian war — a conflict now nearly six […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A New Era of Unreality: Stop Making Sense, or How to Write in the Age of Trump
In the Village Voice, Aleksandar Hemon explores the “unreality” of a Trump presidency, likening this era of American history to the start of the war in Bosnia in 1992, and calling for new literature that doesn’t shy away from the conflicts and destruction ahead.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Syria and the Left
Jacobin‘s Yusef Khalil conducted an wide-ranging interview with Yasser Munif, a Syrian scholar of grassroots movements, to break down the key moral and political issues feeding the Syrian war.