Farewell to a Painting
It was a genuine wrench to walk away from True Belief Belongs to the Realm of Real Knowledge, a huge, sublime wall-painting by Idris Khan. The Whitworth Gallery exhibition of … Continue reading
Reviewed: Palestine Youth Orchestra in Glasgow
The Electronic Intifada, 29th July 2016 The first half of the performance closed with “Metal,” a short piece by contemporary composer Graham Fitkin, a celebratory work inspired by modern British … Continue reading
Font imperialism
Anyone who can read Arabic but lives in the Anglophone world rapidly becomes used to seeing Arabic text turned into gibberish by Western word processing and layout software. For some … Continue reading
New review: Love, Theft and Other Entanglements…
Electronic Intifada, 20th July 2015 Mousa, played by Sami Metwasi, is a thief whose latest job is a vehicle which contains a gagged and bound Israeli soldier, something he finds … Continue reading
Translation as Solidarity: The Book of Gaza
Originally posted on The Comma Press Blog:
GUEST BLOG – Sarah Irving, translator for The Book of Gaza, has written a post on translation, the current situation in Gaza and her…
The Seaside
A while ago, I wrote this short story – my first in years, if not decades. And then a few months ago, I sent it in to a writing website’s … Continue reading
New review: ‘Garden State’ at the Mosaic Rooms
Electronic Intifada, 28 May 2015 But the images also have a larger narrative; the Carmel forest — insofar as any landscape in an inhabited region is “natural” — is not … Continue reading
Gulf War One and the BBC’s banned songs
As the result of a Twitter conversation with SOAS’ David Wearing which started with the 39 Steps and worked its way through the works of John Buchan, Greenmantle, BBC Radio … Continue reading
Neoliberalism and higher education: a wee example from Edinburgh
As Isabel Lachenauer, one of the first – and possibly the last – graduates of the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Arabic masters programme writes: I strongly urge the Head of … Continue reading
New review: Ruth Padel’s ‘Learning to make an Oud in Nazareth’
Electronic Intifada, 24th September 2014 The Holocaust and the extermination of Europe’s Jews usually appear in juxtaposition to the issue of Palestine either in clumsy attempts to equate the two, … Continue reading
New review: The Honourable Woman
Electronic Intifada, 12th September 2014 The title, like much of the series, seems deliberately multi-faceted. Does it refer to the ennoblement of central character Nessa Stein (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), … Continue reading
“For 9 months she fought in the Turkish army, up Beersheba way”
Came across this magificent snippet in an edited volume of the letters of Helen Bentwich, from her time in Palestine at the end of World War One and during the … Continue reading
Glasgow: action against glorification of WW1
Received by email today. There’s a news report on the action here: Dear friends and comrades, Please circulate throughout your networks. To sign on email: whitefeatherclubglasgow [at] gmail.com We the … Continue reading
Nothing more violent than silence
A couple of years ago I had the honour of being invited to speak at Manchester’s beautiful John Rylands Library (the beautiful Victorian original on Deansgate, not the concrete monstrosity … Continue reading
A Bird is Not a Stone
Since it has been one of the consuming passions of the last eighteen months of my life, it seems about time that I post something on here about A Bird … Continue reading
Janarthanan
Characteristically wise and horrible words from Ghassan Hage: You chose the wrong place to douse yourself in petrol and set yourself alight Janarthanan, Don’t even expect to make the front … Continue reading
Sarah Irving 