The Rakha

Author of The Book of the Sultan's Seal, The Crocodiles, And The Dissenters

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  • M.H.R.

    The Passion and Redemption of a Proletarian Seer It’s barely been ten days but this is different. I wrote the following piece on M.H.R., as I like to call him, many months ago. And, even though I’ve sent it out to a range of outlets, no one wants to publish it. So (partly to test…

  • Narrower Than a Strand of Hair

    Dear friends, It’s been a while since I imposed myself on you in this way. I had little news to share—I turned 50 on June 12; I postponed my August-September trip to the States (because the Culture Resource, for the second time in a row, turned down my application for a modest mobility fund!), and…

  • مرثاة الحياة الجديدة

    A New Poem in Arabic* انهيارنا. والبلاد. مليونُ طفل مقاتل. والجذوع التي تتلوى. كانَ عِندي جاذبية. يا صديقي الذي يصدّق. يا رفيق الحياة الجديدة. حتى مصارعُنا جَمرَكوها. ألفُ ناشطٍ يصرِف تذاكر. الجماهير الغفيرة. على رأي عادل إمام. وحياةِ أولادِك دقيقة. هل رأيتَ الحافلات. كل قنبلة مدينة. كل صاروخ مجنّح. والمزابل. والغرام. وقلوبنا التي تتمزق. والطموح…

  • Three Days Since the Ides of March

    and I just saw a phone video in which a Beirut apartment building collapses like a domino house. I don’t know the apartment building but the area looks familiar, and the speed with which the barely visible rocket brings the whole thing down makes it seem like an action flick or a video game. Unreal.…

  • On Surviving One More Year, Ambivalently

    Comrades and confidantes, one and all: It seems the wheel has turned again. As of January 1, I am officially in the last year of my fifth decade. It’s honestly hard to believe, but also the most believable thing. I’m less troubled by it than I feel I should be. Perhaps because the dread dismay…