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| “Gaza’s Nightmare,” Kholoud Hammad, black ink and graphite on paper, 2024 (courtesy the artist). |
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Dear Chas,
Arguably one of the biggest stories this week is the damning Haaretz report that confirms what many people have been saying since 2023: that Benjamin Netanyahu was given explicit warning about October 7 beforehand by several different actors, and that Hamas was willing to release civilian hostages within hours of the operation, with no conditions set in return. This information should also be seen in the light of the evidence—which includes leaked audio from inside an Israeli military command center—that Israeli forces were told to shoot indiscriminately at homes and vehicles on that day, regardless of whether this would harm their own citizens or not. All this to say: authorities are prepared to instrumentalize, and perhaps outright welcome, any horror, any spectacle, in order to advance military and political goals, and that these military and political goals will always take precedence over the lives of their own citizens.
It is a fitting thing to remember on this of all days, September 11. Today marks twenty-five years since planes flew into the Twin Towers, sparking the so-called war on terror—in fact, a reign of western terror across this region. A staggering 4.5 million people have been killed over the last quarter century in direct and indirect ways as a result of the events of that day in 2001. And yet so many questions remain unanswered. In “Failures of the Imagination,” the first of our three pieces this week, Ammiel Alcalay looks back on 9/11 and at the reasons for these gaps in our understanding, citing, among other things, “[t]he false separation of domestic and foreign policy, as well as the firewall preventing connections between scientific understanding and political events through the stark divisions of knowledge in the U.S.” These factors, he argues, “make it exceedingly difficult for U.S. citizens to challenge narratives that short-circuit rational thought.” He draws a direct line between the exploitation of that spectacle and a number of enormous crimes in the region, including “the genocide in Gaza and seizure of land in Palestine.” Which is why we found it fitting to illustrate his piece with a number of drawings by the immensely talented young Palestinian artist from Gaza, Kholoud Hammad. The illustrations originally appear in the book Imperial Abhorrences/For Palestine, a collaboration between Hammad and Alcalay, proceeds from which go directly to benefit the artist’s family in Gaza. You can see and purchase some of Hammad's artwork here or make direct donations to the family’s fundraiser here.
The brutality of global Empire isn’t only manifest via drones and bombs, however. It also has a local twin: the home-grown despots imposing repressive economic and cultural policies, the native enforcers doing Empire's bidding and stepping on the necks of their own people to prevent dissent. This is exactly what happened to our Literary Editor Abdelrahman ElGendy when he and his father were arrested for the crime of simply driving near a protest in Cairo in 2013. ElGendy, only 17 at the time, would spend the next six years behind bars after having initially been handed down a 15-year sentence. His memoir, Huna, released on September 1, is an account of his coming-of-age during that time in prison. In her review of the book, “Becoming Free Behind Bars,” Yasmine El-Rashidi finds that it “resists the familiar scripts of the genre, tipping the balance away from a story defined by the overwhelming weight of systemic brutality, or singular arcs of political martyrdom.” Instead, it offers a different model of defiance against incarceration, that of “the human intellect.”
Finally this week, Amal Ghandour’s column, “Better Baruch Spinoza than Meir Kahane?” examines another issue essential to the structures of power oppressing this region: the ideological fundamentals of the Zionist state. Its propensity for violence and conquest, she argues, were built into its foundational philosophies, and thus its consequences “foreseen, most poignantly by a long line of Jewish critics, all, in Adam Shatz’s eloquent telling, prophets outcast.”
While the stories this week are grim—fitting for this grim anniversary—we hope that you also hold fast to the small but mighty acts of resistance that assert the human intellect and vast human talent of this region, which include the writings, drawings, paintings, books, films, music, plays, and more appearing in these pages and beyond. We also invite you to sign up for our ANTHROPOCENE roundtable, to be held on Thursday, September 17th, in which Abdelrahman ElGendy will be in conversation with three of the brilliant writers featured in the issue. There is much rich discussion to be had on the topic, and we hope you will come and participate in it yourselves.
Warmly, Lina Mounzer, Editor-in-Chief
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The Markaz Review is a nonprofit platform. We are grateful for our thoughtful Supporters. Add your name, join the community, make a donation today. Thanks for reading, sharing, and supporting The Markaz Review. |
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| | The countless unanswered questions about what exactly happened on September 11, 2001 remain the greatest evidence of its instrumentalization. |
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| | This prison memoir resists the usual expectations of the genre and asserts itself as essential reading in Egypt's post-revolutionary history.
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| | Seventy-nine years into the creation of Israel, it remains haunted by its foundational paradoxes. |
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![]() | We are pleased to announce the establishment of The Markaz Literary Prizes. Our vision in launching the TMR prizes is to discover and uplift exceptional emerging writers from the SWANA region. We seek to recognize and celebrate excellence in two distinct genres: the short story and the literary essay/creative nonfiction.
For the inaugural edition of The Markaz Review Literary Prizes 2026-2027, we are grateful for the support of the de Groot Foundation, the Hawthornden Foundation, and other supporters. We're also delighted to be working in close collaboration with the Caine Prize for African Writing.
EXTENDED contest deadline: Midnight (ET), Friday, October 30, 2026. | |
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| Upcoming Events | | Thursday, September 17th • Online | ![]() | Join Abdelrahman ElGendy, TMR Literary Editor, lisa minerva luxx, George Abraham and Cynthia Kreichati on Thursday, September 17, at 1 pm EDT / 6 pm UK / 7 pm CET for a deep-dive roundtable as we pull back the curtain on our latest issue.
What does the Anthropocene framework render invisible? Whose apocalypse has been packaged as the “future”? What does a militant ecology make possible? Can art unlearn the logic of extraction? Across these works, land remembers; animals disappear and return; seeds evade the archive; water carries traces of violence; bodies, ruins, and elements hold what history tries to erase and revolt as freedom fighters. Again and again, these pieces ask us to attend to what it means to understand that “land, like language, is inherited.”
We invite you to sit with the haunting pieces in this issue, think alongside them, and join us for a soon-to-be-announced roundtable discussion, where I’ll be in conversation with several of our contributors. Let us, together, consider how we move from here toward the serious work of worldmaking.
This online event is free but advance registration is required.
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Sunday, September 27th • Online | ![]() | We will meet to discuss Floodlines by Saleem Haddad, online on Sunday, September 27 at 1 pm EDT/19:00 CET. The author will also be in attendance.
About the book:
In the summer of 2014, three estranged sisters are drawn back into each other’s orbits through the discovery of their late father’s lost paintings. As Mediha, Zainab, and Ishtar lay claim to his legacy—an inheritance laced with exile, betrayal, and an Iraq they no longer recognise—Zainab’s son Nizar, a traumatized war correspondent, returns to the family fold. As summer bleeds into autumn and the truth about the family paintings unfurls, Mediha, Zainab, and Ishtar are forced to confront the personal and political betrayals that tore their family apart.
Spanning continents and decades, Floodlines grapples with legacy, memory, and family secrets, and charts the emotional and political aftershocks of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Inspired by Haddad’s family history, Floodlines is a contemporary Iraqi epic that explores family, queerness, and the disruptive legacies of (neo)colonialism in haunting, visceral prose.
About the author: Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father. His critically acclaimed first novel, Guapa (2016), was awarded both a Stonewall Honour and the Polari Prize. His writing spans novels, short stories, essays, film, and television. His directorial debut, Marco, premiered in 2019 and was nominated for the Iris Prize for ‘Best British Short Film’. His writing has been supported by institutions such as Yaddo and the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. His second novel, Floodlines, will be published in February 2026. He lives in Lisbon, with roots in Amman, Beirut, and London. |
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| The Markaz Review is reader supported. As a unique literary arts journal on the Middle East and North Africa, we embrace fine writing and a profound respect for freedom of _expression_. We publish a new theme issue on the ideas of the month + fresh columns & reviews every week. TMR is a nonprofit organization. Make a donation today! | | |
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