A literary and cultural blog dedicated to book reviews, literary travel, art, museums, and thoughtful reading across borders and cultures.
“This is how I live, I am thinking.” “I walked east to St. Mark’s Bookshop, where I roamed the aisles, randomly selecting, feeling papers, and examining fonts, praying for a perfect opening line. (…).” Written in poetic, luminous, melancholic and fragmentary prose M Train by Patti Smith is an introspective […]
I made a recording of my quiet spring days in London and time alone I spent on walking around the city during April weeks. I love long solitary walks. I visited cafes, Foyles Bookshop, the National Gallery, St James’ Park. I particularly enjoyed visiting the exhibition: A View of Mexico […]
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jaqueline Harpman is one of my beloved books I have ever read. You can find my full review here. I prepared a list of seven books that you might also enjoy if you love I Who Have Never….Most books listed below share similar […]
In April I spent a few days in Vienna. On a day of my arrival I took a train to the Inner City and I saw the State Opera, then walked to the Austrian National Library to see its magnificent State Hall. I must say this is the most beautiful […]
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (translated by Sophie Hughes) captures the soul of the modern globalised and culturally homogenised society shaped by the constant flow of online images available on the internet which promises the purposeful and uncomplicated life. The reality however does not always live up to these pictures. The […]
I recorded a few snapshots of my London life during the month of March. In the video you will see Gordon Square and Reading Room at Welcome Collection in Bloomsbury where I often have my lunch breaks, my afternoon and evening walks in Soho, Trafalgar Square and Russell Square. My […]
“(…) nothing healed me of a sore and angry heart like a walk through the city. To see in the street the fifty different ways people struggle to remain human – the variety and inventiveness of survival techniques – was to feel the pressure relieved, the overflow draining off.” The […]
“Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being.” Karl Scheffler, 1910 At the end of February I spent a few days in Berlin. On my first day I wandered the streets of Berlin, saw the Brandenburg Gate by day and night, visited Friedrich Strasse, Holocaust Memorial, […]
I have prepared a short list of books by Egyptian authors exploring the texture of the Egyptian society throughout various eras of the 20th century and early 21st century which I hope you will find useful and interesting. 1 Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi Woman at Point […]
Traces of Enayat by the Egyptian writer Iman Mersal was published in 2019 and tells a story of another Egyptian female writer, Enayat Al-Zayyat who committed suicide at the age of 26 in 1963. She only wrote one book called Love and Silence which initially rejected for publication but later […]