Dark
Light
Sprouting Favas in Cairo
“The fava beans have weevils,” she heard her mother telling her father in an exasperated voice. Mariam woke…
The Mirror That Comes Back
Bahram Beyzai and the Ā’īneh of a Wounded Nation In the Persian mystical imagination, the mirror was never…
From the Nile to Hólaá
Preface When I was younger and my father was still alive, I often thought that I…
Bringing Light into the Darkness:
Paintings and Drawings by a Sudanese Master “No politics,” this was the artist’s only request when I asked…
When All Other Lights Go Out:
Wagner, Howard Shore, and the Long Road Home When I was a little boy, sitting alone in the…
To Study by the Sea
For some, the idea sounds like a dream: to study by the sea. It is for my students…
The Lips that Smell of Spirits
Someone will emerge from beyond the dark mountains to the southeast — I wonder who. Every…
Refracted Selves: Mirrors in Literature, Culture, and the Soul
The Mirror as Threshold When I was four years old I stood in front of a…
The Image of the War Still Haunts Me
In the Spring of 1988, Saddam Hussein’s planes dropped poison gas on the Kurdish city of Halabja in…
Mid-Night Delivery
The rain sang against the windowpanes of my trailer, its clouds blackening the November night. I sat…