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Denys Johnson-Davies in Abu Dhabi
An Englishman’s life in translation The Emirates as Denys Johnson-Davies might have seen them in the early 1950s. Courtesy Al Ittihad newspaper Youssef Rakha enjoys a cup of coffee with Denys...
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Not just a river in Egypt
On the flight back from Cairo to Abu Dhabi, I watched a recent Egyptian comedy about a young man who lives in a tin pitcher. Not literally – but that is the way he describes himself. Because rather...
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Cast from the Garden
From the hotel apartment, you confront the frustrations of a society that is home enough, but will never feel like home – a society that is seemingly modelled on the hotel apartment. With the laundry...
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On wasta for The National
Knowing me, knowing you While the population of young Egyptians rises, while inflation makes even the highest incomes inadequate wasta will inevitably operate on a smaller and quieter scale. The...
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Arabian Ants
My own private Emirates Youssef Rakha clicks his heels together three times and says, ’There’s no oasis like home.’ It had been nearly a week since I slept in my apartment – and I noticed nothing out...
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Remembering The Travels of Ibn Rakha: November, 2008
Our intrepid explorer Youssef Rakha heads to the mall in the footsteps of ibn Battuta. The journalist Abu Said ibn Rakha recounted as follows: My trip from Abu Dhabi to Dubai took place at a later hour...
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حوار مينا ناجي: الصياغة الأخيرة
٦ نوفمبر ٢٠١٠ هل لابد أن ترتبط هوية الكاتب بمكان جغرافى وتاريخ محدد؟ أرى أنها على العكس لابد أن لا ترتبط، لا يصح أن تكون الكتابة مكبلة بفكرة انتماء لمكان معين أو حتى زمن معين. الانتماء لمكان وزمان يكون...
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iPhone aBiography
Sleep-deprivation is like being high. I know because I was high for a long time, then I started sleeping irregularly. It’s supposed to have something to do with lack of sugar in the brain, which is...
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Mohammed El Mazrouie: The angels fly
—You were waiting there, not parting from the threshold. Neither night after night nor morning after morning could wipe off your eyes the elongated picture of a soul, of the trunk of a soul. —Did...
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Her damask cheek: two visions of Syria
Today is the second anniversary of the outbreak of the Syrian revolution on 15 March, 2011 Early one morning in the summer of 2011, a good few months after the ouster of Hosny Mubarak, I received an...
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