Confronting a suitcase full of notebooks left by his father, himself a writer, Orhan Pamuk experienced troubling emotions - anxiety, rivalry, shame. Here the Nobel laureate pays tribute to his most loyal reader, his real father, and his symbolic one, European literature..... Read More

Fear and Money In Dubai

Mike Davis

'As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-coloured islands in the shape of an almost-finished puzzle of the world..... Read More

A State of Siege

Mahmoud Darwish

Although Mahmoud Darwish wrote this long poem during the destructive siege of 2002, its poetic power and topical relevance are still valid today on both the dire Palestinian situation which demonstrated the destructive power of siege, and on the wider Arab one with its varied manifestations of the mentality of a besieged nation. Al-Kalimah offers the full translation of this long poem...... Read More

The translation of Rashid al-Daif's recent book into German engendered a wide debate in Arabic. But none of the articles on the issue presented a thorough reading of the German text, and the strategies of its form. Here Al-Kalimah offers the first critical analysis of this text by the German critic and Scholar, Nicola Liscutin, which deals insightfully with the politics of representation, power and the core issues of this debate. ..... Read More

Village Small Talk, a pioneering story

Mahmud Lashin

Al-Kalimah is aware that one of the major shortcomings of Arabic culture is its lack of historical memory. This lies behind its Milestones section which offers readers some of the cultural landmarks of their recent past, and this short story is one of them..... Read More