Rude Pieties: Six Glimpses of Hervé Guibert

A possible epitaph? Better to remain hungry than to renounce appetite.

Moyra Davey, Lia Gangitano, Bruce Hainley, Hedi El Kholti, Wayne Koestenbaum, Christine Pichini, Janique Vigier

Phoneme Riot: A Conversation with Nour Mobarak

The work of Los Angeles–based artist Nour Mobarak can be understood as an open-ended engagement with the promiscuous and constitutive power of words.

Jace Clayton

General Behavior

When two gooms get each other.

Farah Al Qasimi

South of Nothing: The Photographs of Soham Gupta

When life’s hard, time’s a motherfucker.

Sukhdev Sandhu

Blasted: On Reza Abdoh’s Tight Right White

He ate camp and shat punk, his style a fizzing intestine stuffed with culture’s slime and scraps.

Tobi Haslett

Bidoun Mix 5: Meriem Bennani

Low-key evil

Meriem Bennani, Tiffany Malakooti

We Are The Lines of Control: Unraveling Naeem Mohaiemen

Like a kite catching thermal winds.

Skye Arundhati Thomas

Matter and Mind

As a child in Tehran, the artist Shirin Sabahi took weekly painting classes not far from Park-e Laleh, or tulip park, in the sprawling city center.

Shirin Sabahi

Bidoun Mix 4: Ma’an Abu Taleb

Ma3azefizm

The Night Journey of Ahmed Bouanani

In the stillness of the house at Aït Oumghar there are ghosts of cats.

Anna Della Subin

Book of Judges: Larry David and the War on the War on Comedy

The war of all against all against nothing

Gary Dauphin

Sweet Talk: A Conversation with Thuraya Al-Basqsami and Monira Al Qadiri

I feel like there’s a forest inside me, full of vegetation. Like a bowl of tabbouleh.

Monira Al Qadiri, Thuraya Al-Baqsami

Louvre Me Tender

Soft power plays

Rahel Aima

Bidoun Mix 3: Ghazal

Mix Suedi

Tiffany Malakooti

The Video People

1990s VHS Tehran Cinephiliacs

Media Farzin

Bidoun Mix 2: Deena Abdelwahed

FutureArab/ClubSounds

Soft Dramaturgy: A Conversation with Lukas Duwenhögger, Part II

Precluding the indifferent, eradicating void and uninspiring vastness of, for instance, sunsets.

Bruce Hainley, Lukas Duwenhögger

Soft Dramaturgy: A Conversation with Lukas Duwenhögger, Part I

I hope these words make you cry.

Bruce Hainley, Lukas Duwenhögger

Mary Boone is Egyptian

“I find the whole notion of celebrity embarrassing.”

Gini Alhadeff

Ghariba

Love and romance, dating and friendship, loneliness and community, all set against the terror of aging.

Meriem Bennani

Bidoun Mix 1

Post-(((Persian))) Happy Softcore

Bidoun

The Turban & the Hat

Throughout his career, Sonallah Ibrahim, one of contemporary Arabic literature’s most respected figures, has balanced a sense of outrage at the political and moral corruption permeating the neocolonial situation, against the subtler devices of literary writing.

Hassan Khan

Khartoum’s Hotel Acropole: A smile and a tea

Bureaucracy you thought had died with the Soviet empire flourishes in the deserts of Sudan with a smile and tea…

Elizabeth Rubin

Land of the Seven Scarves: The Kuchi, Afghanistan’s nomads

The Kuchi home is a goat’s wool tarp. Everything happens under there — stories, sex, fights, food.

Elizabeth Rubin

Prime Time Ramadan

Stephanie Keith

Iranian Pop Phenomenon Javad Yassari Caught on Film

One of the very few perks of being an Iranian these days is having the chance to sit back and take a good look at yourself in the mirror. You can find, acknowledge, and accept flaws, or fall in love with parts you like.

Houman Mortazavi