Articles

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

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

The Video People

1990s VHS Tehran Cinephiliacs

Media Farzin

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

William Wells

Down at the end of Nabrawy and Hussein El Me’mar Pasha streets, just minutes from Tahrir Square, lies one of those improbable Cairo junctions that seem to suggest an entire world.

Yasmine El Rashidi

Laila Soueif

For decades, Laila Soueif has been a familiar sight at protests across Cairo.

Lina Attalah

Youssef Rakha

The writer Youssef Rakha is the only child of a former Marxist lawyer and a translator.

May al-Ibrashy

The Pasha Resurrects: What ‘Isa Ibn Hisham Told Us

Sometime in the late 1890s, a struggling writer named ‘Isa took a walk in the City of the Dead.

Muhammad al-Muwaylihi

In all cases, it was a beautiful film to make

Amr Ezzat has always had vivid dreams.

Amr Ezzat

Salima Ikram

I mean, if all else fails, I’ll always have butchery. Or I guess I could work in a funeral home.

Negar Azimi

The Delicacy of Radicalism

Squander.

Haytham El-Wardany

Letter from the Creative Director

The issue of Bidoun you hold in your hands has a photograph affixed to its cover.

Babak Radboy

It Was a Publisher’s Idea

On the Bidoun Library.

Bidoun

Michael Stevenson: The deck is always stacked

It is a rare Marxist who does not believe in God but swears that the existence of the devil can be proven by the swing of a door.

Kate Sutton