Articles
International meeting on youth mobility in the Mediterranean, between challenges and new proposals
From 1 to 4 October, Reggio Calabria hosted a meeting of MOB In MED! the awareness campaign devoted to youth mobility in the Mediterranean involving 19 activists from the region and several local key figures committed to this issue.
2025-10-09
MOB IN MED! in Reggio Calabria
From 1 to 4 October, the Calabrian capital will host the Mob in Med! Meeting part of an awareness campaign on barriers to youth mobility led by Réseau Euromed France (REF) and Jeunesses Med in collaboration with Mana Chuma Teatro, in the framework of an Erasmus+ project.
2025-10-03
Cancellation of the “LiBeraturpreis” award ceremony for the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli
Confusing a Palestinian writer with Hamas fighters is a rare stupidity, a dangerous amalgam. We encourage our readers to discover Adania Shibli’s sensitive prose in the articles she wrote for our website over a decade ago.
2023-10-15
Endless Horror
The military operation carried out on 7 October in southern Israel by the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas party, killed 1,200 people and wounded 2,700. A few hours later, Netanyahu's army attacked the Gaza Strip proclaiming a total siege of a territory already harassed by the harsh embargo that has been in place since 2007. The provision of water, electricity and food were cut off and according to the local authorities the bombing has so far caused 1,949 casualties and more than 6,500 injured, mostly civilians.
2023-10-15
About Translation and Encounters: “Bejn baħar u baħar” - بين بحر وبحر
The Arabic version of my Maltese poetry collection “Bejn baħar u baħar” (Merlin Publishers, 2019) was published last January 2023 under the title ين بحر وبحر by Sefsafa Publishing. Translated by the talented Maria Pakkala, this publication results from a constellation of encounters over the past years.
2023-03-28
Closure of Algerian Media Radio M and Maghreb Emergent: The Tragic End of a Long Political and Legal Harassment
The final attack on the online media Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, which have been published by the Algiers-based company Interface médias for the past ten years. Ihsane El Kadi, their director was detained on 29 December after six days in police custody. The media headquarters were searched and placed under seal on 24 December. These events represent the latest episode of a three-year harassment and intimidation campaign targeting these media and their journalists.
2022-12-27
“Luzzu”: Alex Camilleri’s Cinema of the Real
The film denounces the dramatic situation of Maltese fishermen by telling a story about the dignity of those who fight for survival against major economic interests. After having garnered significant international awards, such as the Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival in Toronto and at the Independent Film Festival in Boston, the film has just been screened at the Festival of Mediterranean Citizens in Catania.
2022-06-21
Algeria. The flourishing “sexy” market. Women under the veil.
The veil is no longer synonymous with austere clothes covering feminine forms in black fabrics. Only a few die-hards continue to wear burqas and black gloves. Banned in 2018 in the workplace, the full-face veil has never been appreciated by Algerian women who prefer a “lighter” hijab.
2021-10-20
Encounter with Mayye Zayed, film director of the documentary “Lift like a girl”
A dusty wasteland in the middle of a working-class neighbourhood of Alexandria with a few odds and ends made thanks to local resourcefulness. This is the setting for the documentary “Like a little girl” where the film director Mayye Zayed spent four years filming an incubator for female weightlifting champions.
2021-10-20
A walking archeology of Khandaq al Ghamiq
After the August 4 Beirut explosion, I would find myself walking and looking for alleys I once visited, houses I once stopped to admire or markets and neighbourhoods I would find solace in. On one of my recent walks, I went to Khandaq al Ghamiq in the neighbourhood of Bachoura, a five minutes' walk from downtown and some fifteen minutes from the port. Bachoura, like many other neighbourhoods in Beirut, is testimony to the struggle of various urban fragments to preserve their origins and withstand the city’s violent shifts and transformations.
2021-09-24
Transmitting the pleasure of reading to children
Reading stories out loud to newborns and continue even after they learn to read by themselves is the best recipe to prepare children for reading. All kinds of stories with illustrations and pictures from a large variety of books from fiction to poetry and if and when possible, reading in different languages. This not only enables them to bond with parents and relate to emotions but also to develop language and listening skills. I believe it is essential to seek balance between guiding them, helping them associate letters, words with images, objects, and sounds and at the same time allowing space for their imagination to be nourished.
2020-01-27
The challenge of translating poetry
Translating poetry is an act of creativity. It is a complex work consisiting of making continuous choices, not only of words, but also of colours, smells, sounds and texture to give to a poem when translating it from one language to another, from a culture to another, from a world to another. It is also a way of wearing the skin of the author himself (like an actor does), trying to absorb the emotions before carving them out in of words in another language without knowing beforehand the forms they may take, the picture they will draw. There are of course numerous challenges to this including the translation of metaphors, rthythm, rhyme, onomatopoeia. In another language these aspects might be flat so one needs to recreate others to compensate and maintain poetic balance. Translating poetry is also a very subjective activity and everything depends on the sensibility of the translator. A poem translated by five different people will be in five different versions.
2020-01-26
MUZZIKA ! LIBYA: AHMED FAKROUN, THE NEW "SUGAR MAN" !!!
You remember in 2012, the revival of that totally forgotten Mexican-American artist, Sixto Rodriguez - The Sugar Man , who had composed wonderful songs in the 70's, but stayed totally unknown until a film - "Sugar Man", named after its hit song - was made on his story by 2 enthusiastic fans ?
2020-01-25